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IMP Manual  for IMP version 2.6.0
Tools for developers

IMP provides a variety of scripts to aid the lives of developers.

Making a module

Creating a module is the easiest way to get started developing code for IMP. First, choose a name for the module. The name should only contain letters, numbers and underscores as it needs to be a valid file name as well as an identifier in Python and C++.

To create the module run tools/make-module.py my_module from the top-level IMP directory. The new module includes a number of examples and comments to help you add code to the module. The directory structure of the new module is identical to that of existing modules.

If you feel your module is of interest to other IMP users and developers, see the contributing code to IMP section.

Formatting your code

The tools/dev_tools/cleanup_code.py script uses the external clang-format and autopep8 programs to reformat C++ and Python code respectively to conform to our preferred indentation, working around some eccentricities of IMP code. clang-format is part of llvm >= 3.4. You should always inspect the changes made by clang-format before submitting.

Checking standards

The tools/dev_tools/check_standards.py runs a number of IMP-specific standards checks on C++ and Python files. It is also run as part of git commits. This can help you conform to IMP's code conventions.