Developing Gel​

Building Locally​

The following instructions should be used to create a "dev" build on Linux or macOS. Windows is not currently supported.

Build Requirements

• GNU make version 3.80 or newer;

• C compiler (GCC or clang);

• Rust compiler and Cargo 1.80 or later;

• autotools;

• Python 3.12 dev package;

• Bison 1.875 or later;

• Flex 2.5.31 or later;

• Perl 5.8.3 or later;

• icu4c 4.6 or later;

• Zlib (zlibg1-dev on Ubuntu);

• Readline dev package;

• Libuuid dev package;

• Node.js 14 or later;

• Yarn 1

• Protobuf & C bindings for Protobuf

On Ubuntu 24.04, these can be installed by running:

$ 
  
  

apt install make gcc rust-all autotools-dev python3.12-dev \
python3.12-venv bison flex libreadline-dev perl zlib1g-dev \
uuid-dev nodejs npm

$ 

npm i -g corepack

$ 

corepack enable && corepack prepare yarn@stable --activate

On macOS, these can be installed by running:

$ 

brew install rustup autoconf libtool python@3.12 readline zlib nodejs icu4c

To build Postgres on macOS, you'll need to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH so it can find the icu4c libraries. This can be done manually each time you rebuild Postgres, or set in your .profile or virtual environment.

$ 

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$(brew --prefix icu4c)/lib/pkgconfig"

A Nix shell with all dependencies and a Python virtual environment can be built with the following shell.nix file.

with import <nixpkgs> {};
pkgs.mkShell {
    name = "gel dev shell";
    venvDir = "./venv";

    buildInputs = with pkgs; [
        python312Packages.python
        python312Packages.venvShellHook
        rustup
        autoconf
        automake
        bison
        flex
        perl
        zlib
        readline
        libuuid
        nodejs
        yarn
        openssl
        pkg-config
        icu
        protobuf
        protobufc
    ];
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH = lib.makeLibraryPath [ pkgs.stdenv.cc.cc ];
    LIBCLANG_PATH = "${llvmPackages.libclang.lib}/lib";

    # If you are using NixOS:
    # Postgres configure script uses /bin/pwd,
    # which does not exist on NixOS.
    #
    # I had a workaround for replacing /bin/pwd with pwd,
    # but it was annoying that postgres/ was dirty.
    # So my fix now is:
    # $ sudo sh -c "echo 'pwd' > /bin/pwd"
    # $ sudo chmod +x /bin/pwd
}

Instructions

The easiest way to set up a development environment is to create a Python "venv" with all dependencies and commands installed into it.

1. Make a new directory that will contain checkouts of gel and gel-python. The name of the directory is arbitrary, we will use "dev" in this guide:

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   $ 

   mkdir ~/dev

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   $ 

   cd ~/dev

2. Clone the gel repository using --recursive to clone all submodules:

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   $ 

   git clone --recursive https://github.com/geldata/gel.git

3. Create a Python 3.12 virtual environment and activate it:

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   $ 

   python3.12 -m venv gel-dev

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   $ 

   source gel-dev/bin/activate

4. Build gel (the build will take a while):

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   $ 

   cd gel

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   $ 

   pip install -v -e ".[test]"

   In addition to compiling Gel and all dependencies, this will also install the edb and gel command line tools into the current Python virtual environment.

   It will also install libraries used during development.

5. Run tests:

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   $ 

   edb test

The new virtual environment is now ready for development and can be activated at any time.

Running Tests​

To run all Gel tests simply use the $ edb test command without arguments.

The command also supports running a few selected tests. To run all tests in a test case file:

$ 

edb test tests/test_edgeql_calls.py

# or run two files:

$ 

edb test tests/test_edgeql_calls.py tests/test_edgeql_for.py

To pattern-match a test by its name:

$ 

edb test -k test_edgeql_calls_01

# or run all tests that contain "test_edgeql_calls":

$ 

edb test -k test_edgeql_calls

See $ edb test --help for more options.

Dev Server​

Use the $ edb server command to start the development server.

You can then use another terminal to open a REPL to the server using the gel command, or connect to it using one of the language bindings.

Test Branches​

Use the $ edb inittestdb command to create and populate branches that are used by unit tests.