Thunderbird Bug Fix Lab

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

File a dummy bug using Mozilla's test bugzilla. NOTE: use Unclassified and dump unwanted bugs here.
Do a debug build of Thunderbird. NOTE: you can obtain a build from your professor if something goes wrong.
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.
Fix the bug. If you need a hint to figure out where to begin working, look here.
Create a patch
Attach your patch to the dummy bug you filed in step 1
Get your patch reviewed by a classmate or your professor
Put your patch and review comments on your personal wiki page
Blog about the experience and include a link to wiki page

List of Valid/Invalid Email Address

Valid Addresses

a@a.com
a.a@a.a
a.a@a.a.com

Invalid Addresses

a@.
a@..
a@..f
a@....f
@.
@.com
@a.com
@a
@a.
@a..
@a...com
a@a.a..a

Resources

Creating a patch for Mozilla
Build your own tree, or use this lab-friendly CVS Thunderbird tree:
- Win32 cdot.senecac.on.ca/tb-cvs.tgz 394M (NOTE: this must be extracted to C:\temp such that client.mk ends-up in C:\temp\tb\mozilla\client.mk)
Regular expression tester: http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/~chris.tyler/regexp/