On 9 November 2011 17:36, James <wirel...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> A better method to review code?
>
You seem to be talking about doing a few different things, none of
which is _quite_ what I'd call a code review.
What you're currently doing makes sense if you're interested in
finding out what some code does before you emerge it.
If you want to work on writing patches for it, then it doesn't make as
much sense.
First, a packaged file in distfiles is probably not the latest version
of the code - you should fetch the latest from version-control (no
point repeating someone else's work)
Next, creating a local overlay (/usr/local/portage) to test patches
for a program isn't a fantastic idea since your changes (and bugs!)
get installed to your system. A local overlay is usually used to test
_ebuild_ development, not program development. Dev Testing is usually
done in a development folder, and is not installed system-wide until
ready. Of course, it's nice to update ebuilds and add lines to apply
your patches before filing a gentoo / ${APP} bug report, but that's
more a near-final step in patch-writing. Take a look at the
gentoo-wiki article on creating a local overlay for info on this.
So basically, I'm advising you to check out from upstream's version
control, work on your patching inside the checkout, perform builds,
but don't "make install". Run the test builds from your development
folder (that way you can have $APP-nopatch installed and working
system-wide, and can compare to it while you're testing). Once your
patch is ready, create a local overlay + update the ebuild to apply
your patch. Finally, file those bug reports!
Happy hacking -
James
