Talk:Mozilla Source Code (CVS)

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[edit] Selecting a Project to Pull

It would be nice to see a CVS command line example for this subtopic. Also, information on how to check out Mozilla code with TortoiseCVS would be helpful. Thanks. Stevietheman 14:54, 9 December 2005 (PST)

There is no example to provide, because the decision on which project to pull is not needed until checkout time of the actual source code (see the Checkout section corresponding to the branch you want to pull). On TortoiseCVS: if you are knowledgeable about it, feel free to propose some content (ironically, isn't TortoiseCVS IE specific?). Andreas Wuest 19:38, 27 December 2005 (PST)

TortoiseCVS is Windows-specific, yes, but I still do most of my development in Windows, for now. TortoiseCVS seems to work fine for checking out the entire tree, but I don't know how to configure it to pull specific projects. I'm afraid somebody is going to have to inform me how to pull a specific project using the command line (successfully) before I can have the potential for translating that to TortoiseCVS. Stevietheman 16:22, 28 December 2005 (PST)

The problem is that the checkout process of the source code is controlled by make via the client.mk file and some environment variables. I doubt you will that get to work with TortoiseCVS, except it would allow for calling special scripts. Andreas Wuest 17:46, 28 December 2005 (PST)

Also, let me clarify what I'm looking for: I would like to see specific step-by-step command line entry instructions on how to pull a specific project. The information that's there now doesn't seem to really spell it out. Stevietheman 16:28, 28 December 2005 (PST)

Here is an example for checking out Firefox from branch HEAD (i.e. trunk) and compiling it:

$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot login
(type the password "anonymous")
$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co mozilla/client.mk
$ cd mozilla
$ make -f client.mk checkout MOZ_CO_PROJECT=browser
$ make -f client.mk build

HTH. Andreas Wuest 17:59, 28 December 2005 (PST)

[edit] I added a CVS command line example

I don't know what is going on with the actually instructions on this page. I think this stuff was from circa 1999? At least it seems old to me. Perhaps someone from the mozilla team will run across this page and delete everything past section 3. Anyone that is really going to try to build/work with mozilla should really just be instructed to check out the whole cvs tree. Jeff Carr 16:26, 26 December 2005 (PST)

The instructions on this page are perfectly up-to-date and accurate. Checking out the complete source tree is actually a very bad idea! It's not only a waste of bandwith on the cvs server, it's also not needed at all to build Mozilla products (not even if you are building the Suite). Please revert your changes, or list it at the bottom of the checkout section, and make it clear that nobody should actually need to pull the complete tree. Thanks. Andreas Wuest 21:11, 26 December 2005 (PST)

Sorry, but you are wrong. These instructions suck. I've been here in the past and didn't even bother trying to check out the tree. The bandwidth isn't a problem. The original cvs scheme was setup that way when bandwidth was a problem: circa 1997. Anyway, the only other comment on this page was exactly the same problem I had so you are out voted 2-1. :) I'm putting this back on the top. This page should be as simple as possible -- checkout instructions should be 1 line you can cut and paste. Serious developers don't have time to waste screwing around with non-standard crap. There is already enough of that! Jeff Carr 11:23, 27 December 2005 (PST)

OK, so we can revert this page back and forth, but I fail to see what is wrong with providing the super simple and easy 4 instructions to build firefox. I don't understand what the harm is in giving something simple to people to start off with. If I would have had these in the first place it would have saved me a ton of wasted time getting up to speed:

cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot checkout -P mozilla
./configure --enable-application=browser
make
./dist/bin/firefox

Thanks, Jeff Carr 18:58, 27 December 2005 (PST)

Because your instructions are wrong. It's neither useful nor needed to pull the complete tree, and it might result in code pulled from the wrong branch for some subtrees. The client.mk way takes this all into account! What's wrong with the information already on the page?? It is an easy to follow list of what to do! The only thing which could be done would be to provide a summary of the steps in an example on how, e.g. to pull Firefox 1.5 or trunk. Andreas Wuest 19:09, 27 December 2005 (PST)