Development Notes

Adding Extentions

To add a new GL extension to Mesa you have to do at least the following.

Coding Style

Mesa's code style has changed over the years. Here's the latest.

Comment your code! It's extremely important that open-source code be well documented. Also, strive to write clean, easily understandable code.

3-space indentation

If you use tabs, set them to 8 columns

Brace example:

	if (condition) {
	   foo;
	}
	else {
	   bar;
	}

Here's the GNU indent command which will best approximate my preferred style:

	indent -br -i3 -npcs infile.c -o outfile.c

Local variable name example: localVarName (no underscores)

Constants and macros are ALL_UPPERCASE, with _ between words

Global vars not allowed.

Function name examples:

	glFooBar()       - a public GL entry point (in dispatch.c)
	_mesa_FooBar()   - the internal immediate mode function
	save_FooBar()    - retained mode (display list) function in dlist.c
	foo_bar()        - a static (private) function
	_mesa_foo_bar()  - an internal non-static Mesa function

Writing a Device Driver

XXX to do

Making a New Mesa Release

These are the instructions for making a new Mesa release.

Be sure to do a "cvs update -d ." in the Mesa directory to get all the latest files.

Update the version definitions in src/mesa/main/version.h

Create/edit the docs/RELNOTES-X.Y file to document what's new in the release. Update the docs/VERSIONS file too.

Edit configs/default and change the MESA_MAJOR, MESA_MINOR and MESA_TINY version numbers.

Edit the top-level Makefile and verify that DIRECTORY, LIB_NAME and DEMO_NAME are correct.

Make a symbolic link from $(DIRECTORY) to 'Mesa'. For example, ln -s Mesa Mesa-6.3 This is needed in order to make a correct tar file in the next step.

Make the distribution files. From inside the Mesa directory:

	make tarballs

Copy the distribution files to a temporary directory, unpack them, compile everything, and run some demos to be sure everything works.

Upload the *.tar.gz and *.zip files to ftp.mesa3d.org

Update the web site.

Make an announcement on the mailing lists: mesa3d-dev@lists.sf.net, mesa3d-users@lists.sf.net and mesa3d-announce@lists.sf.net