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Code style and conventions

Be consistent!

Look at the surrounding code, or a similar part of the project, and try to do the same thing. If you think the other code has actively bad style, fix it (in a separate commit).

When in doubt, ask in chat.zulip.org.

Lint tools

You can run them all at once with

./tools/lint

You can set this up as a local Git commit hook with

``tools/setup-git-repo``

The Vagrant setup process runs this for you.

lint runs many lint checks in parallel, including

JavaScript (ESLint)
Python (Pyflakes)
templates
Puppet configuration
custom checks (e.g. trailing whitespace and spaces-not-tabs)

Secrets

Please don't put any passwords, secret access keys, etc. inline in the code. Instead, use the get_secret function in zproject/settings.py to read secrets from /etc/zulip/secrets.conf.

Dangerous constructs

Misuse of database queries

Look out for Django code like this:

[Foo.objects.get(id=bar.x.id)
for bar in Bar.objects.filter(...)
if  bar.baz < 7]

This will make one database query for each Bar, which is slow in production (but not in local testing!). Instead of a list comprehension, write a single query using Django's QuerySet API.

If you can't rewrite it as a single query, that's a sign that something is wrong with the database schema. So don't defer this optimization when performing schema changes, or else you may later find that it's impossible.

UserProfile.objects.get() / Client.objects.get / etc.

In our Django code, never do direct UserProfile.objects.get(email=foo) database queries. Instead always use get_user_profile_by_{email,id}. There are 3 reasons for this:

It's guaranteed to correctly do a case-inexact lookup
It fetches the user object from remote cache, which is faster
It always fetches a UserProfile object which has been queried using .select_related(), and thus will perform well when one later accesses related models like the Realm.

Similarly we have get_client and get_stream functions to fetch those commonly accessed objects via remote cache.

Using Django model objects as keys in sets/dicts

Don't use Django model objects as keys in sets/dictionaries -- you will get unexpected behavior when dealing with objects obtained from different database queries:

For example, UserProfile.objects.only("id").get(id=17) in set([UserProfile.objects.get(id=17)]) is False

You should work with the IDs instead.

user_profile.save()

You should always pass the update_fields keyword argument to .save() when modifying an existing Django model object. By default, .save() will overwrite every value in the column, which results in lots of race conditions where unrelated changes made by one thread can be accidentally overwritten by another thread that fetched its UserProfile object before the first thread wrote out its change.

Using raw saves to update important model objects

In most cases, we already have a function in zerver/lib/actions.py with a name like do_activate_user that will correctly handle lookups, caching, and notifying running browsers via the event system about your change. So please check whether such a function exists before writing new code to modify a model object, since your new code has a good chance of getting at least one of these things wrong.

Naive datetime objects

Python allows datetime objects to not have an associated timezone, which can cause time-related bugs that are hard to catch with a test suite, or bugs that only show up during daylight savings time.

Good ways to make timezone-aware datetimes are below. We import timezone function as from django.utils.timezone import now as timezone_now and from django.utils.timezone import utc as timezone_utc. When Django is not available, timezone_utc should be replaced with pytz.utc below.

timezone_now() when Django is available, such as in zerver/.
datetime.now(tz=pytz.utc) when Django is not available, such as for bots and scripts.
datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=timezone_utc) if creating a datetime from a timestamp. This is also available as zerver.lib.timestamp.timestamp_to_datetime.
datetime.strptime(date_string, format).replace(tzinfo=timezone_utc) if creating a datetime from a formatted string that is in UTC.

Idioms that result in timezone-naive datetimes, and should be avoided, are datetime.now() and datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp) without a tz parameter, datetime.utcnow() and datetime.utcfromtimestamp(), and datetime.strptime(date_string, format) without replacing the tzinfo at the end.

Additional notes:

Especially in scripts and puppet configuration where Django is not available, using time.time() to get timestamps can be cleaner than dealing with datetimes.
All datetimes on the backend should be in UTC, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.

`x.attr('zid')` vs. `rows.id(x)`

Our message row DOM elements have a custom attribute zid which contains the numerical message ID. Don't access this directly as x.attr('zid') ! The result will be a string and comparisons (e.g. with <=) will give the wrong result, occasionally, just enough to make a bug that's impossible to track down.

You should instead use the id function from the rows module, as in rows.id(x). This returns a number. Even in cases where you do want a string, use the id function, as it will simplify future code changes. In most contexts in JavaScript where a string is needed, you can pass a number without any explicit conversion.

JavaScript var

Always declare JavaScript variables using var:

var x = ...;

In a function, var is necessary or else x will be a global variable. For variables declared at global scope, this has no effect, but we do it for consistency.

JavaScript has function scope only, not block scope. This means that a var declaration inside a for or if acts the same as a var declaration at the beginning of the surrounding function. To avoid confusion, declare all variables at the top of a function.

JavaScript `for (i in myArray)`

Don't use it: [1], [2], [3]

jQuery global state

Don't mess with jQuery global state once the app has loaded. Code like this is very dangerous:

$.ajaxSetup({ async: false });
$.get(...);
$.ajaxSetup({ async: true });

jQuery and the browser are free to run other code while the request is pending, which could perform other Ajax requests with the altered settings.

Instead, switch to the more general $.ajax_ function, which can take options like async.

Translation tags

Remember to tag all user-facing strings for translation, whether they are in HTML templates or JavaScript editing the HTML (e.g. error messages).

State and logs files

Do not write state and logs files inside the current working directory in the production environment. This will not do what you expect, because the current working directory for the app changes every time we do a deploy. Instead, hardcode a path in settings.py -- see SERVER_LOG_PATH in settings.py for an example.

JS array/object manipulation

For generic functions that operate on arrays or JavaScript objects, you should generally use Underscore. We used to use jQuery's utility functions, but the Underscore equivalents are more consistent, better-behaved and offer more choices.

A quick conversion table:

   $.each → _.each (parameters to the callback reversed)
   $.inArray → _.indexOf (parameters reversed)
   $.grep → _.filter
   $.map → _.map
   $.extend → _.extend

There's a subtle difference in the case of _.extend; it will replace attributes with undefined, whereas jQuery won't:

   $.extend({foo: 2}, {foo: undefined});  // yields {foo: 2}, BUT...
   _.extend({foo: 2}, {foo: undefined});  // yields {foo: undefined}!

Also, _.each does not let you break out of the iteration early by returning false, the way jQuery's version does. If you're doing this, you probably want _.find, _.every, or _.any, rather than 'each'.

Some Underscore functions have multiple names. You should always use the canonical name (given in large print in the Underscore documentation), with the exception of _.any, which we prefer over the less clear 'some'.

More arbitrary style things

General

Keep third-party static files under the directory static/third/, with one subdirectory per third-party project.

We have an absolute hard limit on line length only for some files, but we should still avoid extremely long lines. A general guideline is: refactor stuff to get it under 85 characters, unless that makes the code a lot uglier, in which case it's fine to go up to 120 or so.

JavaScript

When calling a function with an anonymous function as an argument, use this style:

$.get('foo', function (data) {
    var x = ...;
    // ...
});

The inner function body is indented one level from the outer function call. The closing brace for the inner function and the closing parenthesis for the outer call are together on the same line. This style isn't necessarily appropriate for calls with multiple anonymous functions or other arguments following them.

Combine adjacent on-ready functions, if they are logically related.

The best way to build complicated DOM elements is a Mustache template like static/templates/message_reactions.handlebars. For simpler things you can use jQuery DOM building APIs like so:

var new_tr = $('<tr />').attr('id', object.id);

Passing a HTML string to jQuery is fine for simple hardcoded things that don't need internationalization:

foo.append('<p id="selected">/</p>');

but avoid programmatically building complicated strings.

We used to favor attaching behaviors in templates like so:

<p onclick="select_zerver({{id}})">

but there are some reasons to prefer attaching events using jQuery code:

Potential huge performance gains by using delegated events where possible
When calling a function from an onclick attribute, this is not bound to the element like you might think
jQuery does event normalization

Either way, avoid complicated JavaScript code inside HTML attributes; call a helper function instead.

HTML / CSS

Avoid using the style= attribute unless the styling is actually dynamic. Instead, define logical classes and put your styles in external CSS files such as zulip.css.

Don't use the tag name in a selector unless you have to. In other words, use .foo instead of span.foo. We shouldn't have to care if the tag type changes in the future.

Python

Don't put a shebang line on a Python file unless it's meaningful to run it as a script. (Some libraries can also be run as scripts, e.g. to run a test suite.)
Scripts should be executed directly (./script.py), so that the interpreter is implicitly found from the shebang line, rather than explicitly overridden (python script.py).
Put all imports together at the top of the file, absent a compelling reason to do otherwise.

Unpacking sequences doesn't require list brackets:

[x, y] = xs    # unnecessary
x, y = xs      # better

For string formatting, use x % (y,) rather than x % y, to avoid ambiguity if y happens to be a tuple.

When selecting by id, don't use foo.pk when you mean foo.id. E.g.

recipient = Recipient(type_id=huddle.pk, type=Recipient.HUDDLE)

should be written as

recipient = Recipient(type_id=huddle.id, type=Recipient.HUDDLE)

in case we ever change the primary keys.

Tests

All significant new features should come with tests. See testing.

Third party code

When adding new third-party packages to our codebase, please include "[third]" at the beginning of the commit message. You don't necessarily need to do this when patching third-party code that's already in tree.

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