synapse/docs/code_style.md

Code Style

Formatting tools

The Synapse codebase uses a number of code formatting tools in order to quickly and automatically check for formatting (and sometimes logical) errors in code.

The necessary tools are detailed below.

• black

  The Synapse codebase uses black as an opinionated code formatter, ensuring all comitted code is properly formatted.

  First install black with:

  pip install --upgrade black
  

  Have black auto-format your code (it shouldn't change any functionality) with:

  black . --exclude="\.tox|build|env"
  

• flake8

  flake8 is a code checking tool. We require code to pass flake8 before being merged into the codebase.

  Install flake8 with:

  pip install --upgrade flake8 flake8-comprehensions
  

  Check all application and test code with:

  flake8 synapse tests
  

• isort

  isort ensures imports are nicely formatted, and can suggest and auto-fix issues such as double-importing.

  Install isort with:

  pip install --upgrade isort
  

  Auto-fix imports with:

  isort -rc synapse tests
  

  -rc means to recursively search the given directories.

It's worth noting that modern IDEs and text editors can run these tools automatically on save. It may be worth looking into whether this functionality is supported in your editor for a more convenient development workflow. It is not, however, recommended to run flake8 on save as it takes a while and is very resource intensive.

General rules

• Naming:
  • Use camel case for class and type names
  • Use underscores for functions and variables.
• Docstrings: should follow the google code style. This is so that we can generate documentation with sphinx. See the examples in the sphinx documentation.
• Imports:

  • Imports should be sorted by isort as described above.

  • Prefer to import classes and functions rather than packages or modules.

    Example:

    from synapse.types import UserID
    ...
    user_id = UserID(local, server)
    

    is preferred over:

    from synapse import types
    ...
    user_id = types.UserID(local, server)
    

    (or any other variant).

    This goes against the advice in the Google style guide, but it means that errors in the name are caught early (at import time).

  • Avoid wildcard imports (from synapse.types import *) and relative imports (from .types import UserID).

Configuration file format

The sample configuration file acts as a reference to Synapse's configuration options for server administrators. Remember that many readers will be unfamiliar with YAML and server administration in general, so that it is important that the file be as easy to understand as possible, which includes following a consistent format.

Some guidelines follow:

• Sections should be separated with a heading consisting of a single line prefixed and suffixed with ##. There should be two blank lines before the section header, and one after.

• Each option should be listed in the file with the following format:

  • A comment describing the setting. Each line of this comment should be prefixed with a hash (#) and a space.

    The comment should describe the default behaviour (ie, what happens if the setting is omitted), as well as what the effect will be if the setting is changed.

    Often, the comment end with something like "uncomment the following to ".

  • A line consisting of only #.

  • A commented-out example setting, prefixed with only #.

    For boolean (on/off) options, convention is that this example should be the opposite to the default (so the comment will end with "Uncomment the following to enable [or disable] ." For other options, the example should give some non-default value which is likely to be useful to the reader.

• There should be a blank line between each option.

• Where several settings are grouped into a single dict, avoid the convention where the whole block is commented out, resulting in comment lines starting # #, as this is hard to read and confusing to edit. Instead, leave the top-level config option uncommented, and follow the conventions above for sub-options. Ensure that your code correctly handles the top-level option being set to None (as it will be if no sub-options are enabled).

• Lines should be wrapped at 80 characters.

• Use two-space indents.

Example:

## Frobnication ##

# The frobnicator will ensure that all requests are fully frobnicated.
# To enable it, uncomment the following.
#
#frobnicator_enabled: true

# By default, the frobnicator will frobnicate with the default frobber.
# The following will make it use an alternative frobber.
#
#frobincator_frobber: special_frobber

# Settings for the frobber
#
frobber:
  # frobbing speed. Defaults to 1.
  #
  #speed: 10

  # frobbing distance. Defaults to 1000.
  #
  #distance: 100

Note that the sample configuration is generated from the synapse code and is maintained by a script, scripts-dev/generate_sample_config. Making sure that the output from this script matches the desired format is left as an exercise for the reader!