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Thunderbird Bug Fix Lab

Revision as of 20:49, 4 November 2007 by David.humphrey (talk | contribs)

Overview

This lab is designed to give you first-hand experience working through a real bug, from confirming to fixing to submitting a patch. You will also get experience building and working with Thunderbird, which shares much of the same code with Firefox.

Introduction

A friend has told you about something they don't like in Mozilla Thunderbird. "I got an email today, and it made a hyperlink out of some text that shouldn't have been underlined."

Here is the text of the email:

Does Wednesday aft. work for you?
I'll tentatively schedule for 3:30 on Wednesday.
We'll come to S@Y...where should we meet?

which is being displayed as follows in Thunderbird:

Does Wednesday aft. work for you?
I'll tentatively schedule 3:30 on Wednesday.
We'll come to S@Y...where should we meet?

You rightly identify this as a bug to your friend, and offer to try and fix it.

Instructions

  1. File a dummy bug using Mozilla's test bugzilla. NOTE: use Unclassified and dump unwanted bugs here.
  2. Do a debug build of Thunderbird. NOTE: you can obtain a build from your professor if something goes wrong.
  3. Confirm the existence of this bug. TIP: try creating a message with the text above, saving it to Drafts, then open in Drafts to see how it gets rendered.
  4. Fix the bug. HINT: mozilla/netwerk/streamconv/converters/mozTXTToHTMLConv.cpp
  5. Create a patch
  6. Attach your patch to the dummy bug you filed in step 1
  7. Get your patch reviewed by a classmate or your professor

Resources