bspwm/doc/CONTRIBUTING.md

Requirements

You must be comfortable with C, XCB and Git.

Coding Style

I follow the Linux Coding Style with the following variations:

• Indent with tabs, align with spaces.
• Always use braces with if/else.

Browsing the Code

If you use vim:

• Hitting K will lead you to the manual page of the function under the cursor (works with most xcb_* functions), sometimes you'll have to explicitly specify the section of the manual you're interested in with 3K (e.g.: open).
• Install ctags and run ctags *.{c,h} in the directory holding the source. Then, hitting Ctrl-] will lead you to the definition of the function/variable/structure under the cursor (to go back: Ctrl-T).
• You can run make from vim with :make and then navigate to the next and the previous error with :cn and :cp.

Debugging

To install debug executables:

make clean debug && make install

You can attach to a running bspwm process with:

gdb bspwm $(pgrep -x bspwm)
c

Or if you just want to generate a backtrace (saved in gdb.txt):

ulimit -c unlimited
startx
sudo systemd-coredumpctl gdb bspwm
set logging on
bt full
q