Contributing to liblevenshtein-rust

Version: 0.9.1 Last Updated: 2026-06-19

Thank you for your interest in contributing to liblevenshtein-rust!

Development Setup

Install Git Hooks (Recommended)

After cloning the repository, install the git hooks to prevent common mistakes:

./scripts/install-git-hooks.sh

This installs hooks that:

• Prevent accidentally committing local development overrides (e.g., uncommented [patch] sections)
• Ensure Cargo.toml uses git dependencies instead of local paths

See .githooks/README.md for more details.

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70 or later
• Git
• Protocol Buffers compiler (optional, for protobuf feature)
  • Linux: sudo apt-get install protobuf-compiler
  • macOS: brew install protobuf
  • Windows: Download from protobuf releases

Building

The project automatically fetches PathMap from GitHub. Just build:

# Build with CPU-specific optimizations
cargo build --all-features

For local PathMap development (optional):

If you need to modify PathMap, uncomment the [patch] section in Cargo.toml:

# Clone PathMap as a sibling directory
cd ..
git clone https://github.com/Adam-Vandervorst/PathMap.git PathMap
cd liblevenshtein-rust

# Uncomment the [patch] section at the end of Cargo.toml
# [patch.'https://github.com/Adam-Vandervorst/PathMap.git']
# pathmap = { path = "../PathMap" }

cargo build --all-features

See building.md for comprehensive build instructions.

Running Tests

# Run all tests
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo test --all-features

# Run tests for specific features
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo test --features compression,protobuf

Running Examples

# Code completion demo
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo run --example code_completion_demo

# DynamicDawg demo
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo run --example dynamic_dawg_demo

# Contextual filtering
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo run --example advanced_contextual_filtering

# Dynamic dictionary updates
cargo run --example dynamic_dictionary

Benchmarks

# Run all benchmarks
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo bench

# Run specific benchmark suite
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo bench --bench serialization_benchmarks --features compression,protobuf
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo bench --bench filtering_prefix_benchmarks

Code Style

• Follow Rust standard formatting (cargo fmt)
• Ensure clippy passes (cargo clippy --all-features)
• Add documentation for public APIs
• Include tests for new functionality
• Write clear commit messages following conventional commits format
• Update CHANGELOG.md for user-facing changes

Pull Request Process

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests
5. Ensure all tests pass
6. Update documentation as needed
7. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
8. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
9. Open a Pull Request

Areas for Contribution

See FUTURE_ENHANCEMENTS.md for detailed planned features.

High Priority

• Additional algorithm variants (e.g., Damerau-Levenshtein with bounded deletions)
• Further performance optimizations (SIMD, parallel queries)
• Improve test coverage for edge cases
• FFI bindings for C/C++ integration

Medium Priority

• Additional serialization formats (MessagePack, CBOR)
• Dictionary builder optimizations
• CLI batch processing and watch mode belong in liblevenshtein-rust-cli
• More comprehensive benchmarking suite

Documentation

• API documentation improvements
• Usage tutorials and cookbooks
• Performance tuning guides
• Algorithm comparison studies
• Integration examples for common frameworks

Examples

• Web service integration (Actix, Axum)
• IDE plugin demonstration
• Real-time search applications
• Multi-language dictionary support

Questions?

Open an issue on GitHub!

License

By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.