Merging upstream version 1.19.0.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 4e0d49ec8..85bf6ece4 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -78,6 +78,36 @@ We expect most contributions to be for new data collection plugins. You can read
 
 Of course we appreciate contributions for any other part of the NetData agent, including the [daemon](daemon), [backends for long term archiving](backends/), innovative ways of using the [REST API](web/api) to create cool [Custom Dashboards](web/gui/custom/) or to include NetData charts in other applications, similarly to what can be done with [Confluence](web/gui/confluence/).
 
+If you are working on the C source code please be aware that we have a standard build configuration that we use. This
+is meant to keep the source tree clean and free of warnings. When you are preparing to work on the code:
+```
+CFLAGS="-O1 -ggdb -Wall -Wextra -Wformat-signedness -fstack-protector-all -DNETDATA_INTERNAL_CHECKS=1 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -DNETDATA_VERIFY_LOCKS=1" ./netdata-installer.sh --disable-lto --dont-wait
+```
+
+Typically we will enable LTO during production builds. The reasons for configuring it this way are:
+
+| CFLAG / argument | Reasoning |
+| ---------------- | --------- |
+| `-O1` | This makes the debugger easier to use as it disables optimisations that break the relationship between the source and the state of the debugger |
+| `-ggdb` | Enable debugging symbols in gdb format (this also works with clang / llbdb) |
+| `-Wall -Wextra -Wformat-signedness` | Really, definitely, absolutely all the warnings |
+| `-DNETDATA_INTERNAL_CHECKS=1` | This enables the debug.log and turns on the macro that outputs to it |
+| `-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2` | Enable buffer-overflow checks on string-processing functions |
+| `-DNETDATA_VERIFY_LOCKS=1` | Enable extra checks and debug |
+| `--disable-lto ` | We enable LTO for production builds, but disable it during development are it can hide errors about missing symbols that have been pruned. |
+
+Before submitting a PR we run through this checklist:
+
+* Compilation warnings
+* valgrind
+* ./netdata-installer.sh
+* make dist
+* `packaging/makeself/build-x86_64-static.sh`
+* `clang-format -style=file`
+
+Please be aware that the linting pass at the end is currently messy as we are transitioning between code styles
+across most of our code-base, but we prefer new contributions that match the linting style.
+
 ### Contributions Ground Rules
 
 #### Code of Conduct and CLA