# How can I contribute to a package?

**URL:** <https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128>\
**Category:** Learn\
**Created:** [October 4, 2018, 11:27am UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128 "2018-10-04T11:27:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aribao](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/aribao/32/724_2.png) [@aribao](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/aribao)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:27am UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128/1 "2018-10-04T11:27:57Z")

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Hi,

I’d like to contribute to one package, adapting it to elm 0.19: [https://github.com/rluiten/elm-date-extra/issues/71](https://github.com/rluiten/elm-date-extra/issues/71)

but I don’t know what are the steps for doing this. I have a project that uses that library, and I’d like to test it on that project. How should I clone the repo and use it in my project?

A guide for contributing to packages would be great.

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![ianmackenzie](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/ianmackenzie/32/86_2.png) [@ianmackenzie](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/ianmackenzie)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128/2 "2018-10-04T13:33:12Z")

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I’d suggest:

- Adding a comment to that issue saying you’re interested in helping update to 0.19 and asking if a pull request would be welcome
- Discussing proposed changes/updates with the maintainer (since Elm’s date/time handling has changed dramatically since 0.18, it looks like it will not be a simple update)

To test your updates to `elm-date-extra` on your own project (assuming that project is an app, and not a package itself), I would do something like:

- Fork `elm-date-extra` to your own GitHub account and start a new `update-to-0.19` or similar branch in it (making pull requests from a branch is much nicer than from `master`)
- Start updating to Elm 0.19 in your branch
- When you’re reading for testing, add a line to `source-directories` in your app’s `elm.json` that contains the relative path to the `src` directory of your `elm-date-extra` checkout, e.g. `"../elm-date-extra/src"`. This will effectively include the source files of `elm-date-extra` in your app so you can use it without having it as a dependency (so you’ll also need to remove it from your dependencies field).

If `elm-date-extra` had any dependencies of its own, you’d also need to add those to your app’s `elm.json`, but it doesn’t so you should be good.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aribao](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/aribao/32/724_2.png) [@aribao](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/aribao)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 2:15pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128/3 "2018-10-04T14:15:56Z")

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thanks a lot for your help @ianmackenzie!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ianmackenzie](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/ianmackenzie/32/86_2.png) [@ianmackenzie](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/ianmackenzie)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128/4 "2018-10-04T19:57:44Z")

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Np - hope it works out!

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/elm_lang/original/1X/50a05e53677a2c3b47776d7abd0f113eb50193a1.png) [@system](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/how-can-i-contribute-to-a-package/2128/5 "2018-10-14T19:57:50Z")

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