starchart/docs/HACKING.md

# Hacking

Instructions WIP. Kindly give feedback :)

## Development dependencies

1. [pkg-config](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/pkg-config)
2. [GNU make](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/make)
3. [libssl-dev](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/libssl-dev)
4. Rust(see [installation instructions](#install-rust))
5. Docker-compose

### Install Rust

Install Rust using [rustup](https://rustup.rs/).

`rustup` is the official Rust installation tool. It enables installation
of multiple versions of `rustc` for different architectures across
multiple release channels(stable, nightly, etc.).

Rust undergoes [six-week release
cycles](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/appendix-05-editions.html#appendix-e---editions)
and some of the dependencies that are used in this program have often
relied on cutting edge features of the Rust compiler. OS Distribution
packaging teams don't often track the latest releases. For this reason,
we encourage managing your Rust installation with `rustup`.

**`rustup` is the officially supported Rust installation method of this
project.**

```bash
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
```

### Setting up the workspace
After installing rust, the database schema needs to be migrated,
we use `sqlx` in this project to handle this. However, before running
this application you might end up finding yourself stuck, here are a 
few things that you might come across.

#### Environment variables
> thread 'main' panicked at 'called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err`
> value: missing field `url`'

Please ensure that you have the `.env` stored in the root of the 
repository, you can copy this from the `.env-sample` present in 
the root of the repository.

[temporary fix] There is also a need for the `DATABASE_URL` to 
be defined, so add that in too.

Next up, run the following commands to have the project compile and run,
```bash
source .env
make migrate
make
```

This should ideally get your instance of Starchart running, and if
you face any issues at this point, it's a good idea to check your
environment variables once more, and review the dependencies for 
the project.

## Implementing Support for $FORGE

> In the future, Starchart will be modified to talk forge federation
> ActivityPub protocol(general term, not referring to
> [forgefed](https://forgefed.peers.community/)), so implementing support
> for $FORGE would mean implementing that protocol for $FORGE.

**TODO**

### Testing

**2022-04-13:** Support for [Gitea](https://gitea.io) is WIP and because
Gitea is Free Software and light-weight to run within CI/CD environment,
we are able to run a Gitea instate and run tests against it. See
[docker-compose-dev-deps.yml](../docker-compose-dev-deps.yml).

## Implementing Support for $DATABASE

> Thank you for your interest in adding support for a new database. Please let us know about your effort
> so that we can link to it on this repository :)

Starchart defines all database operations in [`db-core`](../db/db-core])
local crate. Implementing `SCDatabase` from the same crate will add
support for your database.

### Testing

Tests are generic over all database support implementations, so tests
are implemented as part of the core package at
[db-core/tests.rs](../db/db-core/src/tests.rs) and re-exported for use
within tests.

Please see
[SQLite tests implementation](../db/db-sqlx-sqlite/src/tests.rs) for
inspiration.