Changes between Version 4 and Version 5 of PortingTips

Timestamp:

04/15/08 06:58:40 (7 years ago)

Author:

andreasf

Comment:

Added VCS suggestions

PortingTips

@@ -12 +12 @@
 
 
-== Haiku OS tips ==
+== Getting started on Haiku OS ==
 
 === gcc 2.x (default) ===
@@ -27 +27 @@
 
 A [http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/1844 shell script] to aid in this is available for use with autotools based software.
+
+
+== Porting considerations ==
+
+To automatically patch software with the BePorter tool, source tarballs should be diff'ed (cf. CreatePatch).
+
+Most projects however use SCM/VCS software including CVS, Subversion, git and Mercurial and accept patches only against their latest (HEAD) development version. A possible strategy is:
+
+ 1. Download and try the latest released source tarball. If it works, no further steps are necessary.
+ 1. Otherwise, check if the project maintains a publicly accessible (anonymous) source code repository. You might be able to choose between a branch corresponding to the version number of the source tarball or trunk. (Terminology varies between the VCS tools.)
+
+Doing so, you can easily track or revert your own changes, and this is the preferred format for submitting patches to the respective projects.
+
+Note that it is not easily automatable for BePorter though, but once accepted, future source tarballs promise to compile without patching.
+
+Also note that doing so may, depending on the project, result in more dependencies but might be easier to handle, for instance when modifying {{{configure.in}}} or {{{Makefile.am}}} instead of an Autoconf-generated {{{configure}}} or Automake-generated {{{Makefile}}}.