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diff --git a/doc/hacking.txt b/doc/hacking.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67be177 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/hacking.txt @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +Extending BE +============ + +Adding commands +--------------- + +To write a plugin, you simply create a new file in the +``libbe/commands/`` directory. Take a look at one of the simpler +plugins (e.g. ``remove.py``) for an example of how that looks, and to +start getting a feel for the libbe interface. + +See ``libbe/commands/base.py`` for the definition of the important +classes ``Option``, ``Argument``, ``Command``, ``InputOutput``, +``StorageCallbacks``, and ``UserInterface`` classes. You'll be +subclassing ``Command`` for your command, but all those classes will +be important. + + +Command completion +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +BE implements a general framework to make it easy to support command +completion for arbitrary plugins. In order to support this system, +any of your completable ``Argument()`` instances (in your command's +``.options`` or ``.args``) should be initialized with some valid +completion_callback function. Some common cases are defined in +``libbe.command.util``. If you need more flexibility, see +``libbe.command.list``'s ``--sort`` option for an example of +extensions via ``libbe.command.util.Completer``, or write a custom +completion function from scratch. + + +Adding user interfaces +---------------------- + +Take a look at ``libbe/ui/command_line.py`` for an example. Basically +you'll need to setup a ``UserInterface`` instance for running commands. +More details to come after I write an HTML UI... + + +Testing +======= + +Run any tests in your module with:: + + be$ python test.py <python.module.name> + +for example: + + be$ python test.py libbe.command.merge + +For a definition of "any tests", see ``test.py``'s +``add_module_tests()`` function. + +Note that you will need to run ``make`` before testing a clean BE +branch to auto-generate required files like ``libbe/_version.py``. + + +Profiling +========= + +Find out which 20 calls take the most cumulative time (time of +execution + childrens' times):: + + $ python -m cProfile -o profile be [command] [args] + $ python -c "import pstats; p=pstats.Stats('profile'); p.sort_stats('cumulative').print_stats(20)" + +It's often useful to toss:: + + import sys, traceback + print >> sys.stderr, '-'*60, '\n', '\n'.join(traceback.format_stack()[-10:]) + +into expensive functions (e.g. ``libbe.util.subproc.invoke()``) if +you're not sure why they're being called. |