path: root/docs/xml/patches.xml

<!DOCTYPE appendix PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">

<appendix id="patches" xreflabel="Useful Patches and Utilities for Bugzilla">
  <title>Useful Patches and Utilities for Bugzilla</title>		

  <para>Are you looking for a way to put your Bugzilla into overdrive?  Catch some of the niftiest tricks here in this section.</para>

  <section id="rewrite" xreflabel="Apache mod_rewrite magic">
    <title>Apache <filename>mod_rewrite</filename> magic</title>
    <para>Apache's <filename>mod_rewrite</filename> module lets you do some truly amazing things with URL rewriting.  Here are a couple of examples of what you can do.</para>
    <orderedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para>
	  Make it so if someone types
	  <computeroutput>http://www.foo.com/12345</computeroutput>,
	  Bugzilla spits back
	  http://www.foo.com/show_bug.cgi?id=12345. Try setting up
	  your VirtualHost section for Bugzilla with a rule like
	  this:</para>
	<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/([0-9]+)$ http://foo.bar.com/show_bug.cgi?id=$1 [L,R]
</VirtualHost>
]]>
	</programlisting>

      </listitem>
      <listitem>
	<para>There are many, many more things you can do with
	  mod_rewrite.  As time goes on, I will include many more in
	  the Guide.  For now, though, please refer to the mod_rewrite
	  documentation at <ulink
				  url="http://www.apache.org">http://www.apache.org</ulink></para>
      </listitem>
    </orderedlist>
  </section>

<section id="setperl" xreflabel="The setperl.csh Utility">
    <title>The setperl.csh Utility</title>
    <para>	 You can use the "setperl.csh" utility to quickly and
      easily change the path to perl on all your Bugzilla files. This
      is a C-shell script; if you do not have "csh" or "tcsh" in the
      search path on your system, it will not work!
    </para>	
    <procedure>
      <step>
	<para>
	  Download the "setperl.csh" utility to your Bugzilla
	  directory and make it executable.
	</para>
	<substeps>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput>
		<prompt>bash#</prompt>
		<command>cd /your/path/to/bugzilla</command>
	      </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	  <step>
	  <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt> <command>wget -O
		  setperl.csh
		  'http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=10795'</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	<step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt> <command>chmod
		  u+x setperl.csh</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
      </substeps>
      </step>
      <step>
	<para>
	  Prepare (and fix) Bugzilla file permissions.
	</para>
	<substeps>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput>
		<prompt>bash#</prompt>
		<command>chmod u+w *</command>
	      </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	  <step>
	  <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt> <command>chmod
		  u+x duplicates.cgi</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput>
		<prompt>bash#</prompt>
		<command>chmod a-x bug_status.html</command>
	      </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	</substeps>
      </step>
      <step>
	<para>
	  Run the script:
	</para>
	<para>
	  <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt>
	    <command>./setperl.csh /your/path/to/perl</command>
	  </computeroutput>
<example>
	    <title>Using Setperl to set your perl path</title>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt>
		<command>./setperl.csh /usr/bin/perl</command>
	      </computeroutput>
            </para>
	  </example>
	</para>
      </step>
    </procedure>
  </section>

  <section id="cmdline">
    <title>Command-line Bugzilla Queries</title>
    <para>
      Users can query Bugzilla from the command line using this suite
      of utilities.
    </para>
    <para>
      The query.conf file contains the mapping from options to field
      names and comparison types.  Quoted option names are "grepped"
      for, so it should be easy to edit this file.  Comments (#) have
      no effect; you must make sure these lines do not contain any
      quoted "option"
    </para>
    <para>
      buglist is a shell script which submits a Bugzilla query and
      writes the resulting HTML page to stdout.  It supports both
      short options, (such as "-Afoo" or "-Rbar") and long options
      (such as "--assignedto=foo" or "--reporter=bar").  If the first
      character of an option is not "-", it is treated as if it were
      prefixed with "--default=".
    </para>
    <para>
      The columlist is taken from the COLUMNLIST environment variable.
      This is equivalent to the "Change Columns" option when you list
      bugs in buglist.cgi.  If you have already used Bugzilla, use
      <command>grep COLUMLIST ~/.netscape/cookies</command> to see
      your current COLUMNLIST setting.
    </para>
    <para>
      bugs is a simple shell script which calls buglist and extracts
      the bug numbers from the output.  Adding the prefix
      "http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=" turns the bug
      list into a working link if any bugs are found. Counting bugs is
      easy.  Pipe the results through <command>sed -e 's/,/ /g' | wc |
	awk '{printf $2 "\n"}'</command>
    </para>
    <para>
      Akkana says she has good results piping buglist output through
      <command>w3m -T text/html -dump</command>
    </para>
    <procedure>
      <step>
	<para>
	  Download three files:
	</para>
	<substeps>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash$</prompt> <command>wget -O
		  query.conf
		  'http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=26157'</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash$</prompt> <command>wget -O
		  buglist
		  'http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=26944'</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	  <step>
	    <para>
	      <computeroutput> <prompt>bash#</prompt> <command>wget -O
		  bugs
		  'http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showattachment.cgi?attach_id=26215'</command> </computeroutput>
	    </para>
	  </step>
	</substeps>
      </step>
      <step>
	<para>
	  Make your utilities executable:
	  <computeroutput>
	    <prompt>bash$</prompt>
	    <command>chmod u+x buglist bugs</command>
	  </computeroutput>
	</para>
      </step>
    </procedure>
  </section>

  <section id="quicksearch">
    <title>The Quicksearch Utility</title>
    <para>
      Quicksearch is a new, experimental feature of the 2.12 release.
      It consist of two Javascript files, "quicksearch.js" and
      "localconfig.js", and two documentation files,
      "quicksearch.html" and "quicksearchhack.html"
    </para>
    <para>
      The index.html page has been updated to include the QuickSearch
      text box.
    </para>
    <para>
      To take full advantage of the query power, the Bugzilla
      maintainer must edit "localconfig.js" according to the value
      sets used in the local installation.
    </para>
    <para>
      Currently, keywords must be hard-coded in localconfig.js.  If
      they are not, keywords are not automatically recognized.  This
      means, if localconfig.js is left unconfigured, that searching
      for a bug with the "foo" keyword will only find bugs with "foo"
      in the summary, status whiteboard, product or component name,
      but not those with the keyword "foo".
    </para>
    <para>
      Workarounds for Bugzilla users:
      <simplelist>
	<member>search for '!foo' (this will find only bugs with the
	  keyword "foo"</member>
	<member>search 'foo,!foo' (equivalent to 'foo OR
	  keyword:foo')</member>
      </simplelist>
    </para>
    <para>
      When this tool is ported from client-side JavaScript to
      server-side Perl, the requirement for hard-coding keywords can
      be fixed. <ulink
		       url="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70907">This bug</ulink> has details.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section id="bzhacking">
    <title>Hacking Bugzilla</title>
    <para>
      The following is a guide for reviewers when checking code into Bugzilla's
      CVS repostory at mozilla.org.  If you wish to submit patches to Bugzilla,
      you should follow the rules and style conventions below.  Any code that
      does not adhere to these basic rules will not be added to Bugzilla's
      codebase.
    </para>
    <section>
      <title>Things that have caused problems and should be avoided</title>
      <orderedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Usage of variables in Regular Expressions
          </para>
          <para>
            It is very important that you don't use a variable in a regular
            expression unless that variable is supposed to contain an expression.
            This especially applies when using grep.  You should use:
          </para>
          <para>
            <programlisting>
grep ($_ eq $value, @array);
            </programlisting>
          </para>
          <para>
            -- NOT THIS --
          </para>
          <para>
            <programlisting>
grep (/$value/, @array);
            </programlisting>
          </para>
          <note>
            <para>
              If you need to use a non-expression variable inside of an expression, be
              sure to quote it properly (using <function>\Q..\E</function>).
            </para>
          </note>
        </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </section>
    <section>
      <title>Coding Style for Bugzilla</title>
      <para>
        While it's true that not all of the code currently in Bugzilla adheres to
        this (or any) styleguide, it is something that is being worked toward.  Therefore,
        we ask that all new code (submitted patches and new files) follow this guide
        as closely as possible (if you're only changing 1 or 2 lines, you don't have
        to reformat the entire file :).
      </para>
      <para>
        The Bugzilla development team has decided to adopt the perl style guide as
        published by Larry Wall.  This giude can be found in <quote>Programming
        Perl</quote> (the camel book) or by typing <command>man perlstyle</command> at
        your favorite shell prompt.
      </para>
      <para>
        What appears below if a brief summary, please refer to the perl style
        guide if you don't see your question covered here.  It is much better to submit
	a patch which fails these criteria than no patch at all, but please try to meet
	these minimum standards when submitting code to Bugzilla.
      </para>
      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Whitespace
          </para>
          <para>
            Bugzilla's preferred indentation is 4 spaces (no tabs, please).
          </para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Curly braces.
          </para>
          <para>
            The opening brace of a block should be on the same line as the statement
            that is causing the block and the closing brace should be at the same
            indentation level as that statement, for example:
          </para>
          <para>
            <programlisting>
if ($var) {
    print "The variable is true";
}
else {
    print "Try again";
}
            </programlisting>
          </para>
          <para>
            -- NOT THIS --
          </para>
          <para>
            <programlisting>
if ($var)
{
    print "The variable is true";
}
else
{
    print "Try again";
}
            </programlisting>
          </para>
        </listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Cookies
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Bugzilla uses cookies to ease the user experience, but no new patches
	    should <emphasis>require</emphasis> user-side cookies.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            File Names
          </para>
          <para>
            File names for bugzilla code and support documention should be legal across
            multiple platforms. <computeroutput>\ / : * ? &quot; &lt; &gt;</computeroutput>
            and <computeroutput>|</computeroutput> are all illegal characters for filenames
            on various platforms.  Also, file names should not have spaces in them as they
            can cause confusion in CVS and other mozilla.org utilities.
          </para>
        </listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Javascript dependencies
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    While Bugzilla uses Javascript to make the user experience easier, no patch
	    to Bugzilla should <emphasis>require</emphasis> Javascript.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Patch Format
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    All patches submitted for inclusion into Bugzilla should be in the form of a
	    <quote>unified diff</quote>.  This comes from using <quote>diff -u</quote>
	    instead of simply <quote>diff</quote> when creating your patch.  This will
	    result in quicker acceptance of the patch.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Schema Changes
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    If you make schema changes, you should modify <filename>sanitycheck.cgi</filename>
	    to support the new schema.  All referential columns should be checked.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Taint Mode
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    All new cgis must run in Taint mode (Perl taint and DBI taint), and existing cgi's
	    which run in taint mode must not have taint mode turned off.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    Templatization
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Patches to Bugzilla need to support templates so they do not force user interface choices
	    on Bugzilla administrators.
	  </para>
	</listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Variable Names
          </para>
          <para>
            If a variable is scoped globally (<computeroutput>$::variable</computeroutput>)
            its name should be descriptive of what it contains.  Local variables can be named
            a bit looser, provided the context makes their content obvious.  For example,
            <computeroutput>$ret</computeroutput> could be used as a staging variable for a
             routine's return value as the line <computeroutput>return $ret;</computeroutput>
             will make it blatantly obvious what the variable holds and most likely be shown
             on the same screen as <computeroutput>my $ret = "";</computeroutput>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
            Cross Database Compatability
          </para>
          <para>
            Bugzilla was originally written to work with MySQL and therefore took advantage
            of some of its features that aren't contained in other RDBMS software.  These
            should be avoided in all new code.  Examples of these features are enums and
            <function>encrypt()</function>.
          </para>
        </listitem>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Cross Platform Compatability
          </para>
          <para>
            While Bugzilla was written to be used on Unix based systems (and Unix/Linux is
            still the only officially supported platform) there are many who desire/need to
            run Bugzilla on Microsoft Windows boxes.  Whenever possible, we should strive
            not to make the lives of these people any more complicated and avoid doing things
            that break Bugzilla's ability to run on multiple operating systems.
          </para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </section>
  </section>

</appendix>


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