Contributing to VICE

VICE is written in a cohesive manner around a core set of objects. That is, VICE’s implementation shares one library, with considerable overlap between relevant calculations (e.g. the multizone object makes use of the singlezone object, which makes use of the dataframe objects, and so on). The dataframe being the exception which is implemented in Cython, the majority of these objects are implemented in C, declared via typedef struct statements in the file vice/src/objects/objects.h. VICE’s entire C library can be found in the directory vice/src/, and the major components of its python implementation in vice/core/. This includes the singlezone and multizone objects, the dataframe and all derived classes, the output and multioutput objects, and single stellar population routines in the vice/core/ssp/ subdirectory. The hierarchical file structure of these directories are designed to mirror one another. The yields module, however, is separate from the VICE core, and it implements all of the nucleosynthetic yield calculations, inependent of the chemical evolution model/simulation features. Those wishing to contribute to VICE are strongly encouraged to reach out to our contributors or to join us on Slack; we are happy to collaborate with those interested in extending VICE’s capabilities!

Note

The primary author (James W. Johnson) reserves the right to make revisions to all contributed code and associated documentation.

Building a New Extension

To contribute to VICE, first fork the repository and develop the necessary objects and functions in the fork. The changes should reflect the overall design of the package and should, to the best of one’s ability, comply with the stylistic conventions adopted throughout the code base.

All extensions should be given unit tests, making use of the moduletest and unittest objects scripted in the files vice/testing/moduletest.py and vice/testing/unittest.py. These objects can be created from the @unittest and @moduletest decorators implemented in vice/testing/decorators.py. The associated documentation should provide adequate instruction on how to make use of these objects.

Documenting Changes

All docstrings visible to the user after installation should be in the numpydocs format. This is not required (though recommended) for docstrings not accessible to the user. Any C routines added to the source code should be given comment headers with descriptions of their purpose, any parameters they accept, what they return, and the header files they’re declared in. These comment headers should reflect the style of those already present in the C library. Finally, add the new features to the API reference config file at docs/src/api/pkgcontents/gen/config.py and generate the documentation by running make in the docs/ directory.

Submitting a Contribution

To submit your contribution, first conduct the steps outlined above, then please open a pull request, and label it as an enhancement.