## If you have a question or need any help...

Please use [the mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/mybatis-user) instead of creating issues on the tracker. Thank you!

## Reporting a bug

- Create a new issue on [the tracker](https://github.com/mybatis/mybatis-3/issues).
- The best way to report a bug is to create a failing test case. Please see the [Contributing code](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-code) section.

## Proposing a new feature

- It is a good idea to discuss your changes on [the mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/mybatis-user) to get feedback from the community.
- If you have a patch with unit tests, send a pull request. Please see the [Contributing code](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-code) section.


## Improving documentation

- Documentations are placed under [src/site](https://github.com/mybatis/mybatis-3/tree/master/src/site) directory in [the xdoc format](http://maven.apache.org/doxia/references/xdoc-format.html), so it is basically the same as creating a patch to contribute documentation changes. Please see the [Contributing code](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-code) section.

## Contributing code

### Copyright and License

- You are the author of your contributions and will always be.
- Everything you can find it this project is licensed under the Apache Software License 2.0
- Every contribution you do must be licensed under the Apache Software License 2.0. Otherwise we will not be able to accept it.
- Please make sure that all the new files you create hold the following header:

```
/*
 *    Copyright [year] the original author or authors.
 *
 *    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 *    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 *    You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 *    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 *    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 *    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 *    limitations under the License.
 */
```

### How to send your modifications as a pull request

The best way to submit a patch is to send a pull request.  
Here are the steps of a typical workflow.

1. Fork the repository on GitHub.
2. Clone your fork to your local machine.
3. Create a topic branch with a descriptive name.
4. Make changes with unit tests in the topic branch.
5. Push commits to your fork on GitHub.
6. Send a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests).

For steps 1 to 3, please read [this GitHub help](https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo) if you are not familiar with these operations.  
Step 4 and 5 are basic [git](http://git-scm.com/) operations. Please see the [online documentation](http://git-scm.com/documentation) for its usage.

For how to write a unit test, please see the [unit test](https://github.com/mybatis/mybatis-3/wiki/Unit-Test) page.