path: root/doc/HACKING

Hacking Tor: An Incomplete Guide
================================


Useful tools
------------

The buildbot
~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://buildbot.vidalia-project.net/one_line_per_build

Useful command-lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dmalloc
^^^^^^^

dmalloc -l ~/dmalloc.log
(run the commands it tells you)
./configure --with-dmalloc

Valgrind
^^^^^^^^

valgrind --leak-check=yes --error-limit=no --show-reachable=yes src/or/tor

(Note that if you get a zillion openssl warnings, you will also need to
pass --undef-value-errors=no to valgrind, or rebuild your openssl
with -DPURIFY.)

Running gcov for unit test coverage
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

-----
  make clean
  make CFLAGS='-g -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage'
  ./src/test/test
  cd src/common; gcov *.[ch]
  cd ../or; gcov *.[ch]
-----

Then, look at the .gcov files.  '-' before a line means that the
compiler generated  no code for that line.  '######' means that the
line was never reached.  Lines with numbers were called that number
of times.

Coding conventions
------------------

Whitespace and C conformance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Invoke "make check-spaces" from time to time, so it can tell you about
deviations from our C whitespace style.  Generally, we use:

    - Unix-style line endings
    - K&R-style indentation
    - No space before newlines
    - A blank line at the end of each file
    - Never more than one blank line in a row
    - Always spaces, never tabs
    - No more than 79-columns per line.
    - Two spaces per indent.
    - A space between control keywords and their corresponding paren
      "if (x)", "while (x)", and "switch (x)", never "if(x)", "while(x)", or
      "switch(x)".
    - A space between anything and an open brace.
    - No space between a function name and an opening paren. "puts(x)", not
      "puts (x)".
    - Function declarations at the start of the line.

We try hard to build without warnings everywhere.  In particular, if you're
using gcc, you should invoke the configure script with the option
"--enable-gcc-warnings".  This will give a bunch of extra warning flags to
the compiler, and help us find divergences from our preferred C style.

Getting emacs to edit Tor source properly
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hi, folks!  Nick here.  I like to put the following snippet in my .emacs
file:

-----
    (add-hook 'c-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (font-lock-mode 1)
            (set-variable 'show-trailing-whitespace t)

            (let ((fname (expand-file-name (buffer-file-name))))
              (cond
               ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/libevent" fname)
                (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode t)
                (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 4)
                (set-variable 'tab-width 4))
               ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/tor" fname)
                (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode nil)
                (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 2))
               ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/openssl" fname)
                (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode t)
                (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 8)
                (set-variable 'tab-width 8))
            ))))
-----

You'll note that it defaults to showing all trailing whitespace.  The "cond"
test detects whether the file is one of a few C free software projects that I
often edit, and sets up the indentation level and tab preferences to match
what they want.

If you want to try this out, you'll need to change the filename regex
patterns to match where you keep your Tor files.

If you *only* use emacs to edit Tor, you could always just say:

-----
   (add-hook 'c-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (font-lock-mode 1)
            (set-variable 'show-trailing-whitespace t)
            (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode nil)
            (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 2)))
-----

There is probably a better way to do this.  No, we are probably not going
to clutter the files with emacs stuff.

Details
~~~~~~~

Use tor_malloc, tor_free, tor_strdup, and tor_gettimeofday instead of their
generic equivalents.  (They always succeed or exit.)

You can get a full list of the compatibility functions that Tor provides by
looking through src/common/util.h and src/common/compat.h.  You can see the
available containers in src/common/containers.h.  You should probably
familiarize yourself with these modules before you write too much code, or
else you'll wind up reinventing the wheel.

Use 'INLINE' instead of 'inline', so that we work properly on Windows.

Calling and naming conventions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whenever possible, functions should return -1 on error and 0 on success.

For multi-word identifiers, use lowercase words combined with
underscores. (e.g., "multi_word_identifier").  Use ALL_CAPS for macros and
constants.

Typenames should end with "_t".

Function names should be prefixed with a module name or object name.  (In
general, code to manipulate an object should be a module with the same name
as the object, so it's hard to tell which convention is used.)

Functions that do things should have imperative-verb names
(e.g. buffer_clear, buffer_resize); functions that return booleans should
have predicate names (e.g. buffer_is_empty, buffer_needs_resizing).

If you find that you have four or more possible return code values, it's
probably time to create an enum.  If you find that you are passing three or
more flags to a function, it's probably time to create a flags argument that
takes a bitfield.

What To Optimize
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't optimize anything if it's not in the critical path.  Right now, the
critical path seems to be AES, logging, and the network itself.  Feel free to
do your own profiling to determine otherwise.

Log conventions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#LogLevels

No error or warning messages should be expected during normal OR or OP
operation.

If a library function is currently called such that failure always means ERR,
then the library function should log WARN and let the caller log ERR.

[XXX Proposed convention: every message of severity INFO or higher should
either (A) be intelligible to end-users who don't know the Tor source; or (B)
somehow inform the end-users that they aren't expected to understand the
message (perhaps with a string like "internal error").  Option (A) is to be
preferred to option (B). -NM]

Doxygen
~~~~~~~~

We use the 'doxygen' utility to generate documentation from our
source code. Here's how to use it:

  1. Begin every file that should be documented with
         /**
          * \file filename.c
          * \brief Short description of the file.
          **/

     (Doxygen will recognize any comment beginning with /** as special.)

  2. Before any function, structure, #define, or variable you want to
     document, add a comment of the form:

        /** Describe the function's actions in imperative sentences.
         *
         * Use blank lines for paragraph breaks
         *   - and
         *   - hyphens
         *   - for
         *   - lists.
         *
         * Write <b>argument_names</b> in boldface.
         *
         * \code
         *     place_example_code();
         *     between_code_and_endcode_commands();
         * \endcode
         */

  3. Make sure to escape the characters "<", ">", "\", "%" and "#" as "\<",
     "\>", "\\", "\%", and "\#".

  4. To document structure members, you can use two forms:

       struct foo {
         /** You can put the comment before an element; */
         int a;
         int b; /**< Or use the less-than symbol to put the comment
                 * after the element. */
       };

  5. To generate documentation from the Tor source code, type:

     $ doxygen -g

     To generate a file called 'Doxyfile'.  Edit that file and run
     'doxygen' to generate the API documentation.

  6. See the Doxygen manual for more information; this summary just
     scratches the surface.

Doxygen comment conventions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Say what functions do as a series of one or more imperative sentences, as
though you were telling somebody how to be the function.  In other words, DO
NOT say:

     /** The strtol function parses a number.
      *
      * nptr -- the string to parse.  It can include whitespace.
      * endptr -- a string pointer to hold the first thing that is not part
      *    of the number, if present.
      * base -- the numeric base.
      * returns: the resulting number.
      */
     long strtol(const char *nptr, char **nptr, int base);

Instead, please DO say:

     /** Parse a number in radix <b>base</b> from the string <b>nptr</b>,
      * and return the result.  Skip all leading whitespace.  If
      * <b>endptr</b> is not NULL, set *<b>endptr</b> to the first character
      * after the number parsed.
      **/
     long strtol(const char *nptr, char **nptr, int base);

Doxygen comments are the contract in our abstraction-by-contract world: if
the functions that call your function rely on it doing something, then your
function should mention that it does that something in the documentation.  If
you rely on a function doing something beyond what is in its documentation,
then you should watch out, or it might do something else later.