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-rw-r--r--doc/contributing.texi23
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/doc/contributing.texi b/doc/contributing.texi
index 24db9a89e6..9fc1eb54d8 100644
--- a/doc/contributing.texi
+++ b/doc/contributing.texi
@@ -237,6 +237,8 @@ especially when matching lists.
@node Formatting Code
@subsection Formatting Code
+@cindex formatting code
+@cindex coding style
When writing Scheme code, we follow common wisdom among Scheme
programmers. In general, we follow the
@url{http://mumble.net/~campbell/scheme/style.txt, Riastradh's Lisp
@@ -246,8 +248,20 @@ please do read it.
Some special forms introduced in Guix, such as the @code{substitute*}
macro, have special indentation rules. These are defined in the
-@file{.dir-locals.el} file, which Emacs automatically uses. If you do
-not use Emacs, please make sure to let your editor know the rules.
+@file{.dir-locals.el} file, which Emacs automatically uses.
+
+@cindex indentation, of code
+@cindex formatting, of code
+If you do not use Emacs, please make sure to let your editor knows these
+rules. To automatically indent a package definition, you can also run:
+
+@example
+./etc/indent-package.el gnu/packages/@var{file}.scm @var{package}
+@end example
+
+@noindent
+This automatically indents the definition of @var{package} in
+@file{gnu/packages/@var{file}.scm} by running Emacs in batch mode.
We require all top-level procedures to carry a docstring. This
requirement can be relaxed for simple private procedures in the
@@ -358,6 +372,11 @@ Bundling unrelated changes together makes reviewing harder and slower.
Examples of unrelated changes include the addition of several packages,
or a package update along with fixes to that package.
+@item
+Please follow our code formatting rules, possibly running the
+@command{etc/indent-package.el} script to do that automatically for you
+(@pxref{Formatting Code}).
+
@end enumerate
When posting a patch to the mailing list, use @samp{[PATCH] @dots{}} as