This document describes how to set up your development environment to build and test Angular, both
JS and Dart versions. It also explains the basic mechanics of using git
, node
, and npm
.
- Prerequisite Software
- Getting the Sources
- Environment Variable Setup
- Installing NPM Modules and Dart Packages
- Running Tests Locally
- Project Information
- CI using Travis
- Transforming Dart code
- Debugging
See the contribution guidelines if you'd like to contribute to Angular.
Before you can build and test Angular, you must install and configure the following products on your development machine:
-
Dart (version
>=1.9.0 <2.0.0
), specifically the Dart-SDK and Dartium (a version of Chromium with native support for Dart through the Dart VM). One of the simplest ways to get both is to install the Dart Editor bundle, which includes the editor, SDK and Dartium. See the Dart tools download page for instructions. You can also download both stable and dev channel versions from the download archive. -
Git and/or the GitHub app (for Mac or Windows); GitHub's Guide to Installing Git is a good source of information.
-
Node.js, which is used to run a development web server, run tests, and generate distributable files. We also use Node's Package Manager,
npm
, which comes with Node. Depending on your system, you can install Node either from source or as a pre-packaged bundle. -
Chrome Canary, a version of Chrome with bleeding edge functionality, built especially for developers (and early adopters).
Fork and clone the Angular repository:
- Login to your GitHub account or create one by following the instructions given here.
- Fork the main Angular repository.
- Clone your fork of the Angular repository and define an
upstream
remote pointing back to the Angular repository that you forked in the first place.
# Clone your GitHub repository:
git clone [email protected]:<github username>/angular.git
# Go to the Angular directory:
cd angular
# Add the main Angular repository as an upstream remote to your repository:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/angular/angular.git
Define the environment variables listed below. These are mainly needed for the testing. The
notation shown here is for bash
; adapt as appropriate for
your favorite shell.
Examples given below of possible values for initializing the environment variables assume Mac OS
X and that you have installed the Dart Editor in the directory named by
DART_EDITOR_DIR=/Applications/dart
. This is only for illustrative purposes.
# DARTIUM_BIN: path to a Dartium browser executable; used by Karma to run Dart tests
export DARTIUM_BIN="$DART_EDITOR_DIR/chromium/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium"
Add the Dart SDK bin
directory to your path and/or define DART_SDK
(this is also detailed
here):
# DART_SDK: path to a Dart SDK directory
export DART_SDK="$DART_EDITOR_DIR/dart-sdk"
# Update PATH to include the Dart SDK bin directory
PATH+=":$DART_SDK/bin"
Next, install the JavaScript modules and Dart packages needed to build and test Angular:
# Install Angular project dependencies (package.json)
npm install
Optional: In this document, we make use of project local npm
package scripts and binaries
(stored under ./node_modules/.bin
) by prefixing these command invocations with $(npm bin)
; in
particular gulp
and protractor
commands. If you prefer, you can drop this path prefix by either:
Option 1: globally installing these two packages as follows:
npm install -g gulp
(you might need to prefix this command withsudo
)npm install -g protractor
(you might need to prefix this command withsudo
)
Since global installs can become stale, and required versions can vary by project, we avoid their use in these instructions.
Option 2: defining a bash alias like alias nbin='PATH=$(npm bin):$PATH'
as detailed in this
Stackoverflow answer and used like this: e.g., nbin gulp build
.
To build Angular and prepare tests, run:
$(npm bin)/gulp build
Notes:
- Results are put in the
dist
folder. - This will also run
pub get
for the subfolders inmodules
and rundartanalyzer
for every file that matches<module>/src/<module>.dart
, e.g.di/src/di.dart
.
You can selectively build either the JS or Dart versions as follows:
$(npm bin)/gulp build.js
$(npm bin)/gulp build.dart
To clean out the dist
folder, run:
$(npm bin)/gulp clean
npm test
: full test suite for both JS and Dart versions of Angular. These are the same tests that run on Travis.
You can selectively run either the JS or Dart versions as follows:
$(npm bin)/gulp test.all.js
$(npm bin)/gulp test.all.dart
You can run just the unit tests as follows:
$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.js
: JS tests in a browser; runs in watch mode (i.e. karma watches the test files for changes and re-runs tests when files are updated).$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.cjs
: JS tests in NodeJS; runs in watch mode.$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.dart
: Dart tests in Dartium; runs in watch mode.
If you prefer running tests in "single-run" mode rather than watch mode use:
$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.js/ci
$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.cjs/ci
$(npm bin)/gulp test.unit.dart/ci
Note: If you want to only run a single test you can alter the test you wish to run by changing
it
to iit
or describe
to ddescribe
. This will only run that individual test and make it
much easier to debug. xit
and xdescribe
can also be useful to exclude a test and a group of
tests respectively.
Note for transpiler tests: The karma preprocessor is setup in a way so that after every test run the transpiler is reloaded. With that it is possible to make changes to the preprocessor and run the tests without exiting karma (just touch a test file that you would like to run).
$(npm bin)/gulp build.js.cjs
(builds benchpress and tests intodist/js/cjs
folder).$(npm bin)/gulp serve.js.prod serve.js.dart2js
(runs a local webserver).$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-js.conf.js
: JS e2e tests.$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-dart2js.conf.js
: dart2js e2e tests.
Angular specific command line options when running protractor:
$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-{js|dart2js}-conf.js --ng-help
$(npm bin)/gulp build.js.cjs
(builds benchpress and tests intodist/js/cjs
folder)$(npm bin)/gulp serve.js.prod serve.js.dart2js
(runs a local webserver)$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-js.conf.js --benchmark
: JS performance tests$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-dart2js.conf.js --benchmark
: dart2js performance tests
Angular specific command line options when running protractor (e.g. force gc, ...):
$(npm bin)/protractor protractor-{js|dart2js}-conf.js --ng-help
modules/*
: modules that will be loaded in the browsertools/*
: tools that are needed to build Angulardist/*
: build files are placed here.
*.js
: JavaScript files that get transpiled to Dart and EcmaScript 5*.es6
: JavaScript files that get transpiled only to EcmaScript 5*.es5
: JavaScript files that don't get transpiled*.dart
: Dart files that don't get transpiled
For instructions on setting up Continuous Integration using Travis, see the instructions given here.
See the wiki.
If you need to debug the transpiler:
- add a
debugger;
statement in the transpiler code, - from the root folder, execute
node debug $(npm bin)/gulp build
to enter the node debugger - press "c" to execute the program until you reach the
debugger;
statement, - you can then type "repl" to enter the REPL and inspect variables in the context.
See the Node.js manual for more information.
Notes:
- You can also execute
node $(npm bin)/karma start karma-dart.conf.js
depending on which code you want to debug (the former will process the "modules" folder while the later processes the transpiler specs). - You can also add
debugger;
statements in the specs (JavaScript). The execution will halt when the developer tools are opened in the browser running Karma.
If you need to debug the tests:
- add a
debugger;
statement to the test you want to debug (or the source code), - execute karma
$(npm bin)/gulp test.js
, - press the top right "DEBUG" button,
- open the DevTools and press F5,
- the execution halts at the
debugger;
statement
Note (WebStorm users):
- Create a Karma run config from WebStorm.
- Then in the "Run" menu, press "Debug 'karma-js.conf.js'", and WebStorm will stop in the generated
code on the
debugger;
statement. - You can then step into the code and add watches.
The debugger;
statement is needed because WebStorm will stop in a transpiled file. Breakpoints in
the original source files are not supported at the moment.