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Diffstat (limited to 'README.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 93 |
1 files changed, 26 insertions, 67 deletions
@@ -3,49 +3,41 @@ Bitcoin Core integration/staging tree [](https://travis-ci.org/bitcoin/bitcoin) -https://www.bitcoin.org - -Copyright (c) 2009-2014 Bitcoin Core Developers +https://bitcoincore.org What is Bitcoin? ---------------- -Bitcoin is an experimental new digital currency that enables instant payments to +Bitcoin is an experimental digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin Core is the name of open source software which enables the use of this currency. For more information, as well as an immediately useable, binary version of -the Bitcoin Core software, see https://www.bitcoin.org/en/download. +the Bitcoin Core software, see https://bitcoin.org/en/download, or read the +[original whitepaper](https://bitcoincore.org/bitcoin.pdf). License ------- Bitcoin Core is released under the terms of the MIT license. See [COPYING](COPYING) for more -information or see http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT. +information or see https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT. -Development process +Development Process ------------------- -Developers work in their own trees, then submit pull requests when they think -their feature or bug fix is ready. - -If it is a simple/trivial/non-controversial change, then one of the Bitcoin -development team members simply pulls it. +The `master` branch is regularly built and tested, but is not guaranteed to be +completely stable. [Tags](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tags) are created +regularly to indicate new official, stable release versions of Bitcoin Core. -If it is a *more complicated or potentially controversial* change, then the patch -submitter will be asked to start a discussion (if they haven't already) on the -[mailing list](http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=bitcoin-development). +The contribution workflow is described in [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). -The patch will be accepted if there is broad consensus that it is a good thing. -Developers should expect to rework and resubmit patches if the code doesn't -match the project's coding conventions (see [doc/coding.md](doc/coding.md)) or are -controversial. +The developer [mailing list](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev) +should be used to discuss complicated or controversial changes before working +on a patch set. -The `master` branch is regularly built and tested, but is not guaranteed to be -completely stable. [Tags](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tags) are created -regularly to indicate new official, stable release versions of Bitcoin. +Developer IRC can be found on Freenode at #bitcoin-core-dev. Testing ------- @@ -57,20 +49,22 @@ lots of money. ### Automated Testing -Developers are strongly encouraged to write unit tests for new code, and to -submit new unit tests for old code. Unit tests can be compiled and run (assuming they weren't disabled in configure) with: `make check` +Developers are strongly encouraged to write [unit tests](/doc/unit-tests.md) for new code, and to +submit new unit tests for old code. Unit tests can be compiled and run +(assuming they weren't disabled in configure) with: `make check` + +There are also [regression and integration tests](/qa) of the RPC interface, written +in Python, that are run automatically on the build server. +These tests can be run (if the [test dependencies](/qa) are installed) with: `qa/pull-tester/rpc-tests.py` -Every pull request is built for both Windows and Linux on a dedicated server, -and unit and sanity tests are automatically run. The binaries produced may be -used for manual QA testing — a link to them will appear in a comment on the -pull request posted by [BitcoinPullTester](https://github.com/BitcoinPullTester). See https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/test-scripts -for the build/test scripts. +The Travis CI system makes sure that every pull request is built for Windows, Linux, and OS X, and that unit/sanity tests are run automatically. ### Manual Quality Assurance (QA) Testing -Large changes should have a test plan, and should be tested by somebody other -than the developer who wrote the code. -See https://github.com/bitcoin/QA/ for how to create a test plan. +Changes should be tested by somebody other than the developer who wrote the +code. This is especially important for large or high-risk changes. It is useful +to add a test plan to the pull request description if testing the changes is +not straightforward. Translations ------------ @@ -85,38 +79,3 @@ Translations are periodically pulled from Transifex and merged into the git repo pull from Transifex would automatically overwrite them again. Translators should also subscribe to the [mailing list](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/bitcoin-translators). - -Development tips and tricks ---------------------------- - -**compiling for debugging** - -Run configure with the --enable-debug option, then make. Or run configure with -CXXFLAGS="-g -ggdb -O0" or whatever debug flags you need. - -**debug.log** - -If the code is behaving strangely, take a look in the debug.log file in the data directory; -error and debugging messages are written there. - -The -debug=... command-line option controls debugging; running with just -debug will turn -on all categories (and give you a very large debug.log file). - -The Qt code routes qDebug() output to debug.log under category "qt": run with -debug=qt -to see it. - -**testnet and regtest modes** - -Run with the -testnet option to run with "play bitcoins" on the test network, if you -are testing multi-machine code that needs to operate across the internet. - -If you are testing something that can run on one machine, run with the -regtest option. -In regression test mode, blocks can be created on-demand; see qa/rpc-tests/ for tests -that run in -regtest mode. - -**DEBUG_LOCKORDER** - -Bitcoin Core is a multithreaded application, and deadlocks or other multithreading bugs -can be very difficult to track down. Compiling with -DDEBUG_LOCKORDER (configure -CXXFLAGS="-DDEBUG_LOCKORDER -g") inserts run-time checks to keep track of which locks -are held, and adds warnings to the debug.log file if inconsistencies are detected. |