path: root/HACKING

Checking out the Source
-----------------------

SyncEvolution is hosted at sf.net. If you want to work
on the code, just let me know what your SF account is
and I can provide access to the developers CVS. The
anonymous CVS mirrors the sources automatically, but
sometimes is lacking a bit behind. Before using sources
checked out from CVS, invoke "sh autogen.sh" with
appropriate autotools packages installed.

The most recent version of the Sync4j C++ client library
is available from CVS, checkout the "3x" module from the CVS at
   http://forge.objectweb.org/projects/sync4j
You'll need the files in 3x/client-api/native.

Also note that some of the patches in the
3x/client-api/native/.patches directory might be needed for
SyncEvolution to compile and work correctly. See
3x/client-api/native/README for more information about those patches
and SyncEvolution's NEWS file for some information which client
library is compatible.

The recommended way to make that library available is by
installing it into its own directory with shared libraries disabled:
   configure --prefix=<dir> --disable-shared; make; make install
and then pointing the configure of SyncEvolution towards it:
   configure --with-sync4j=<dir> --disable-shared
Shared versions of the libraries are not recommended at the moment
because the client libraries API is not expected to be stable.

Alternatively SyncEvolution can work with a source snapshot of
the client library directly:
   configure --with-sync4j-src=<dir>
where <dir> points towards the contents of the 3x/client-api/native
directory. This mode is required to generate source distributions
because those are meant to contain a copy of the client library
code.


Working with the Code
---------------------

The code follows the code formatting of the Funambol
Sync4j C++ client library. Just emulate the existing
code when possible.

Exceptions derived from std::exception are used to report
errors, but not in code which is called from inside the Sync4j
library because that library does not handle exceptions for compatibility
reasons. In that case special case must be taken to not
forget that an error occurred (EvolutionSyncSource::m_hasFailed).
This is done in in EvolutionSyncSource wrapper functions
which call the real functions which then may throw exceptions.
The EvolutionSyncSource::handleException() function deals with
logging the exception.

SyncEvolution uses the Funambol C++ testing framework (which is
based on the previous SyncEvolution testing). Configure with
--enable-integration-tests and (optionally) --enable-unit-tests,
then run "src/client-test" as described in the C++ client libraries
test/README.txt.

It understands the same environment variables as the C++ client
libraries "client-test", among them:
- CLIENT_TEST_SERVER = chooses config
- CLIENT_TEST_LOG = name of server log file, will be copied and reset
  after each sync
- CLIENT_TEST_FAILURES = comma separated list of tests which are allowed
  to fail without affecting the return code of the test runner
- CLIENT_TEST_ALARM = number of seconds a single test is allowed to run
  before aborting it
- CLIENT_TEST_SOURCES = comma separated list of enabled sources, identified
  by their name (ical20, vcard21, vcard30, itodo20, text (= memos))

In addition it supports:
- CLIENT_TEST_EVOLUTION_PREFIX=[name|file://<path>] overrides
  the evolutionsource setting in the configuration; if file:// is used
  then these database will be created automatically

Here are step-by-step instructions to get started with testing,
using ScheduleWorld as example:
- CLIENT_TEST_SERVER=scheduleworld \
  CLIENT_TEST_EVOLUTION_PREFIX=file:///tmp/testing/ \
  ./client-test -h
  => creates ~/.sync4j/evolution/scheduleworld_[12]/ configs
     which use data bases under /tmp/testing, then
     prints all available tests
- edit ~/.sync4j/evolution/scheduleworld_[12]/spds/syncml/config.txt
  and enter account data for ScheduleWorld in both configurations;
  check that the syncURL is correct
- CLIENT_TEST_SERVER=scheduleworld \
  CLIENT_TEST_EVOLUTION_PREFIX=file:///tmp/testing/ \
  ./client-test Client::Source
  => runs alls tests involving just local operations
- CLIENT_TEST_SERVER=scheduleworld \
  CLIENT_TEST_EVOLUTION_PREFIX=file:///tmp/testing/ \
  ./client-test Client::Sync::vcard30::testCopy
  => runs one test that checks that one contact can
     be copied to and from the server using the two
     configurations
- CLIENT_TEST_SERVER=scheduleworld \
  CLIENT_TEST_EVOLUTION_PREFIX=file:///tmp/testing/ \
  ./client-test Client::Sync
  => runs all tests which involve the SyncML server;
     tests involving just one source are run first,
     followed by the same tests with all enabled
     sources in two different orders

"make valgrind" runs the same tests inside valgrind
[http://www.valgrind.org]. A suppression file is
used to hide errors inside system libraries which
are not caused by SyncEvolution or Sync4j C++
library code. Most likely the suppressions will only
work on Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("Sarge") - feel free
to add more for your system.


CVS
---

Please add your changes to the ChangeLog file. The
Emacs vc-update-change-log = C-x v a command collects
the latest CVS commit messages and adds them automatically.


Building a Release
------------------

- increase version number in configure.in/AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
- ensure files were updated:
  ./ChangeLog ./NEWS debian/changelog
- make distcheck
- compile binary .tar.gz packages for different Evolution versions;
  done automatically by runtests.py on estamos.de (= Debian 3.0), using different Garnome
  installations, and with special configure options to ensure maximum
  portability (LDFLAGS=-W,--as-needed --enable-static-cxx)
- compile .deb for Maemo:
  build patched libdbus (apt-get source dbus; apply dbus-timeout.patch; fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage);
  unpack source archive in Scratchbox (for maximum compatibility: use Mistral 2.0
  rootstrap; for support of all backends: ensure that the EDS-DBus calendar dev packages
  are installed),
  DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=maemo=<path of directory with patched libdbus-1.a> fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
  NOTE: dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot does *not* work as it leads to strange problems executing a.out
  during the client-src configure.

Maemo EDS-DBus calendar dev packages /etc/apt/source.list:
  deb http://maemo.o-hand.com/packages mistral/
  deb-src http://maemo.o-hand.com/packages mistral/ 
Installation _without_ updating more than strictly necessary (just to be sure
that address book syncing uses the default libraries):
  apt-get update
  apt-cache showpkg libecal-dev libedata-cal-dev
  ver=1.4.1-0zoh4; for i in libecal-dev libecal libedata-cal libedata-cal-dev; do  wget http://maemo.o-hand.com/packages/mistral/${i}_${ver}_armel.deb; done
  dpkg --force-depends -i *.deb

- compiling for iPhone:
  Requires iPhone toolchain and libcurl, ideally configured as small as possible
  and statically (to avoid packaging problems):
      ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/iphone --host=arm-apple-darwin --disable-shared \
                  --disable-crypto-auth --without-gnutls --without-ssl --without-zlib \
                  --without-libssh2 --disable-ipv6 --disable-manual --disable-telnet \
                  --disable-tftp  --disable-ldap  --disable-file --disable-ftp
      manually set HAVE_POSIX_STRERROR_R in lib/config.h

  Potential problems with toolchain:
    std++ not found: ln -s libstdc++.6.dylib /usr/local/iphone-filesystem/usr/lib/libstdc++.dylib
    AddressBook framework must be added to iphone-dev/include/install-headers.sh.in

  Compile with curl-config in the PATH:
    PATH=/usr/local/iphone/bin/:$PATH ~/projects/sync4jevolution/configure --host=arm-apple-darwin --with-sync4j-src=/home/patrick/projects/native CXXFLAGS=-g --disable-ecal --disable-ebook --enable-addressbook