linkchecker/doc/development.md

Developing LinkChecker

The following steps describe how to compile LinkChecker from source on various platforms.

This is a technical document, if you are looking for ways to participate in the community, you should rather look into contributing.

Requirements

On Mac OS X systems, using MacPorts, Fink or homebrew for software installation is recommended.

• Install Python >= 2.7.2 from http://www.python.org/

• On Windows only, install the Windows SDK http://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/bb980924

• On Windows only, download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en

• Optional, used for Virus checking: ClamAv for Unix from http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/download/ or for Windows from http://www.sosdg.org/clamav-win32/

• Optional, for displaying country codes: Pygeoip from http://code.google.com/p/pygeoip/

Setup for Unix/Linux

Execute make localbuild to compile a local version and execute ./linkchecker. Execute make test to run the unittest suite. Execute make dist to build a distributable source package.

Setup for Mac OS X

Execute make localbuild to compile a local version and execute ./linkchecker. Execute make test to run the unittest suite. Execute make app to build a distributable source package.

Setup for Windows

Execute windows\build.bat to build a local version. Execute windows\test.bat to run the unittest suite. Execute windows\dist.bat to build a binary installer.

Release process

1. check whether updated man pages and translations need committing (make locale; make -C doc locale; make -C doc man) if so create a pull request using the GitHub workflow: "Create a branch with updated man pages and application translations"

2. edit changelog.txt and upgrading.txt, and if applicable the copyright dates in linkcheck/configuration/__init__.py

3. confirm tests have passed

4. submit a pull request

5. create release (vX.Y.Z) on GitHub

6. download Python distribution files from the GitHub release

7. check distribution files (twine check LinkChecker*) and upload to PyPI (twine upload LinkChecker*)