Working with the development version

VDrift's code is kept in a Git repository on GitHub. To get the development version, you must "check out" the code from this repository.

Browsing the repositories

VDrift's source on the GitHub web site is at https://github.com/VDrift/vdrift/. Here you may browse the VDrift repositories and even download single files. This is very useful for examining changes between different revisions, in a user-friendly manner.

Checking out the code

If you want to do much work on VDrift you'll need to check out an copy of the source code and your platform's dependencies.

Linux/Unix

Install a git client (eg. Git). If you are using a Linux distribution you can search for it in the package manager. When you have installed it you need to open a terminal and run the following code:

git clone git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift.git vdrift

It will download the current development version in the subfolder vdrift. Next, check out the data.

Windows

The best solution for Windows is to download MSysGit. After installing it, open Windows Explorer and go to the directory to which you want to download the VDrift source code. Right-click and click Git GUI Here. Select Open Existing Repository. In the next screen you need to fill in the URL of the repository which is git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift.git. Simply click OK, and the source code will be downloaded. Then do the same, but with the URL git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift-win.git and make sure that it downloads in a /vdrift-win directory in the main vdrift directory. Next, check out the data.

Mac OS X

First you will need to obtain a git client (eg. GitHub for Mac). Once you have a working Git client open a terminal and navigate to where you wish to download the VDrift source code. Then run the following code:

git clone git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift.git vdrift

to download the lastest source code to the subfolder vdrift. Then navigate to the vdrift folder:

cd vdrift

and download the mac dependencies into the subfolder vdrift-mac:

git clone git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift-mac.git vdrift-mac

Finally check out the data.

Checking out the data

The data set is currently only available from the SourceForge SVN (https://vdrift.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vdrift/vdrift-data). It needs to be checked out in a /data directory in the main vdrift directory. If you are using a command-line SVN client and have the VDrift repository checked out in a directory called /home/user/vdrift, you would do this:

cd /home/user/vdrift
svn co https://vdrift.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vdrift/vdrift-data data

Working with the repository

See this documentation for more info: http://help.github.com/

Making your own changes

If you want to make your own changes to improve VDrift, the easiest way is to fork the main VDrift repo on GitHub (https://github.com/VDrift/vdrift/). Just click the button near the top right of the page. You will need a free GitHub account. Then clone your new repo onto your computer:

git clone git@github.com:username/vdrift.git

And link this to the original VDrift repo:

git remote add upstream git://github.com/VDrift/vdrift.git
git fetch upstream

Updating

Once the reposotory has been checked out, it can be updated without downloading the entire thing again. For command line git, use the command

git pull

to check for updates and apply them. If you have made some changes, use the following instead to prevent these being lost:

git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/master

Uploading changes

To upload any changes you've made, first add the files to the commit:

git add filename

Then do the commit:

git commit -m 'Commit message'

And finally send this to GitHub:

git push origin master

Checking in changes

You can request a VDrift developer to incorporate your changes by initiating a GitHub pull request. See this documentation for more info: http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests/

Thank you for helping make VDrift better for everyone!