Development
-----------
This document describes some handy things to know when developing the GEGL
internals. The link:glossary.html[GEGL glossary] might help make sense of the
terms used.
Some useful links for developing GEGL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
link:build.html[Getting sources, and building]::
Links and information about various ways of getting a build
environment for GEGL.
link:images/inheritance.png[GEGL inheritance tree]::
Class inheritance graph generated from static introspection.
link:operation-api.html[Operation API]::
An overview to the operation API.
link:abyss_policy.html[Abyss policy]::
A description of the abyss policy settings in `gegl_buffer_get()`
link:source-overview.html[Source overview]::
An overview of the source tree.
Some examples of programs built against the GEGL library can be found in the
link:http://git.gnome.org/browse/gegl/tree/examples/[examples
subdirectory] of the GEGL source tree including
link:hello-world.html[hello-world].
Setting up
----------
Ubuntu 20.04
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Setup instructions for Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa
To install the mandatory dependencies:
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config python3 python3-pip \
ninja-build git libglib2.0-dev libjson-glib-dev libpng-dev
$ sudo pip3 install meson
Some of the other dependencies:
* Documentation:
$ sudo apt-get install asciidoc source-highlight graphviz-dev
* Localisation:
$ sudo apt-get install gettext
* Plugins:
$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg libopenraw libtiff
When running gegl the environment variable
link:environment.html#GEGL_PATH[`GEGL_PATH`] is used to set the location of the
dynamically loaded operation libraries. Setting the path to
`<gegl_build_dir>/operations` allows gegl to be run using uninstalled
operations, e.g.
$ export GEGL_PATH=<gegl_build_dir>/operations/
BABL
~~~~
Meson uses `pkg-config` to find its dependencies. When building against an
uninstalled development version of babl, gegl needs to be able to locate the
library and headers. This done by adding the location of the uninstalled
`pkg-config` file to the `PKG_CONFIG_PATH` environment variable when configuring
meson:
$ PKG_CONFIG_PATH=<babl_build_dir>/meson-uninstalled:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH meson
The babl library searches for extensions in the directory stored in the
link:environment.html#BABL_PATH[`BABL_PATH`] environment variable or in the
directory containing the library itself. For example, if building against
an uninstalled babl installation set the `BABL_PATH` as follows
$ export BABL_PATH=<babl_build_dir>/babl/extensions
to allow gegl tests to be run correctly and the documentation to be built.
// Netbeans 6.5
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~
// There are some key points to consider when setting up GEGL in an IDE
// (tested on Netbeans):
// - have to configure the IDE to use the autogen.sh as configure script
// - normally have to use gegl/bin/.libs/gegl as the executable,
// not gegl/bin/gegl which is a script.
// - in some (?) case has to use bin/.libs/lt-gegl as the executable, which is some
// kind of relinked gegl binary
Debugging
---------
By default gegl and babl build with the meson `buildtype=debugoptimized` setting
which uses the compiler flags `-g` for debug instrumentation and `-Ofast` for
code optimisation. These optimisations cause unexpected code jumps when stepping
through code in a debugger. To turn of optimisation (`-O0`) build with
`buildtype=debug`, e.g.
$ meson _build buildtype=debug
$ ninja
Debug output
~~~~~~~~~~~~
GEGL has built in mechanisms for logging debug information.
GEGL_NOTE(CACHE, "foo %s", bar);
GEGL_TIMESTAMP(PROCESSOR);
GEGL_MARK();
Where CACHE and PROCESSOR are used the following logging domains are available:
PROCESS, CACHE, BUFFER_LOAD, BUFFER_SAVE, TILE_BACKEND and PROCESSOR
Actual printing of these can be enabled by setting the
link:environment.html#GEGL_DEBUG[`GEGL_DEBUG`] environment variable:
$ GEGL_DEBUG=processor,cache
or even
$ GEGL_DEBUG=all
Other debug specific link:environment.html#GEGL_DEBUG[environment variables] are
also available.
There are also a few functions that are useful as you debug from within a
debugger such as GDB. In GDB for example, you call a function interactively in
the prompt, while a breakpoint is hit for example, by typing `print
function_name(args)`.
Some useful functions are:
* `gegl_dot_node_to_png_default()` Writes a PNG to `/tmp/node.png` with the
dependency graph for the passed link:glossary.html#node[node].
* `gegl_node_dump_depends_on()` Dumps to stdout the nodes that the passed node
depends on. With this you can work yourself backwards in a dependency graph.
* `gegl_node_get_debug_name()` Prints a debug string representation of a node.
Graphviz export
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The gegl library has a utility that permits to export of the
link:glossary.html#DAG[DAG] in Graphviz format. Graphviz is a library that
creates visualisations of text graph descriptions. See the
http://www.graphviz.org/[graphviz website].
It is done using:
ifeval::["{highlight}" == "true"]
[source, c]
endif::[]
-----
#include "../gegl/gegl-dot.h"
/* for printing the dot output, note that gegl_node is a GeglNode pointer */
gchar *dot_output = gegl_to_dot( gegl_node );
printf( "%s\n", dot_output );
g_free( dot_output );
-----
For creating the graph image:
$ gegl --file gaussian-blur.xml --output out.png | dot -Tpng > gb.png
.gaussian-blur.xml
ifeval::["{highlight}" == "true"]
[source, xml]
endif::[]
-----
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<gegl>
<node operation='gegl:gaussian-blur'>
<params>
<param name='std-dev-x'>0.999</param>
<param name='std-dev-y'>0.999</param>
</params>
</node>
<node operation='gegl:load'>
<params>
<param name='path'>in.png</param>
</params>
</node>
</gegl>
-----
link:images/gaussian-blur-graph.png[Resulting graph].
You can also just call the function `gegl_dot_node_to_png()` directly from
within gdb to show the Graphviz graph of a node and its dependencies.
Tests
-----
There are regression tests in the subfolder `tests`. These are run with the
command `meson test`. On slow platforms the test timeouts can be multiplied
_n_-fold using the `-t n` parameter. The tests are divided into a number
test-suites and these may be run individually by using the parameter `--suite
suite-1 [[--suite suite-2] ...]`. Individual tests can be run by appending the
test name(s) to the command. For example:
.....
$ meson test -t 5
$ meson test --suite composition
$ meson test alien_map bump_map
.....
Operation reference renders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the operation documentation available at
http://gegl.org/operations[The GEGL website] the GEGL build runs
`tools/gegl-tester` which generates a 200x200 pixel PNG image for each
operation, based on a set of standard input images and default parameters, or
optionally, with a custom, representative, GEGL graph stored in the operations'
meta-data.
GEGL tries to tune its settings to be as deterministic as possible when
rendering these images, taking the md5sums of the raster content (not the PNG
files) and comparing it against a reference md5sum also stored in the operation
meta-data. Reference compositions with mismatched hashes are reported as errors
by the program. It is possible to use this program for regression testing. To
force a re-run of the image file generation remove the `docs/operations/images`
sub-folder and run `ninja` again.
XML Composition tests
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The tests under `tests/compositions` are high-level system tests for GEGL and
its' operations. Together with the
link:https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gegl/-/pipelines[GNOME gitlab CI/CD
pipelines] that run all our tests whenever the codebase is changed, the
composition tests make a powerful framework for detecting regressions.
Adding an XML composition test
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To add a composition test for a operation called `gegl:new-operation`, do the
following:
. Create a GEGL XML file `tests/compositions/new-operation.xml` (will typically
look approximately like `tests/compositions/pixelise.xml`).
. Produce a reference image: `cd tests/compositions; gegl -o
/tmp/new-operation.png new-operation.xml` (make sure your operation is
installed so `gegl` finds it).
. Manually inspect the reference image `/tmp/new-operation.png` and move it to
`tests/compositions/reference` if it looks as you expect.
. Add the test name `new-operation` to `composition_tests` in the
`tests/compositions/meson.build` file.
. Run `meson test new-operation` to verify that your test works.
When the composition test suite is called it will run `gegl` with
`tests/compositions/new-operation.xml` and compare the result with
`tests/compositions/reference/new-operation.png`. If the results differ, the
test will fail. Whenever a new commit is made to the GEGL source code repository
the CI/CD pipelines will be triggered and, if they fail, emails will be sent to
the GEGL maintainers. Thus, if someone breaks your contributed GEGL operation,
it will be discovered quickly, making it easy to fix, either by reverting or
fixing the erroneous commit.
An example of a commit that adds a composition test for a GEGL operation is
link:https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gegl/-/commit/47e52cb23d101c5870f848f55bdf865395e7156a[
tests: add exposure and saturation composition].
Documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This document describes how to document GEGL using it's build system.
There are three utilities used:
. link:https://wwww.asciidoc.org[asciidoc] - used for generating html
from text files.
. link:https://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite/[source-highlight] -
used to add syntax coloring to source code (called by asciidoc).
. link:https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/GtkDoc[gtk-doc] -
used for generating api documentation.
All documentation resources are placed in the `doc` sub-directory of the source
tree and the generation is controlled by the `meson.build` files.
asciidoc
^^^^^^^^
TODO
source-highlight
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
TODO
This example will show how a new c/h file is converted into html using asciidoc
and source-highlight.
gtk-doc
^^^^^^^
The API documentation is generated automatically using gtk-doc. Normally this is
created at install time but may be generated in the build tree by building the
gegl-doc target manually:
$ ninja gegl-doc
Inheritance tree
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is an automatically generated
link:images/inheritance.png[inheritance tree] of the gobjects used by gegl.
[NOTE]
====
Operations are also gobjects, but they are not included in the inheritance tree.
====
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