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This is the first time I am trying to contribute to Mozilla. I went through several articles and documentation/resources to get a hang of what could be the best first steps to get started. I started off from this page http://whatcanidoformozilla.org1 and chose to start off with Java.

On initial tinkering I was taken to https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Get_Involved and eventually https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Fennec/Android/Suggested_workflow resource suggested that the best way to get started with it would be to pick up some simple bug and propose a patch for it.

So then I went to http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/?java=1&simple=1 and this specific bug drew my attention. The description of the bug mentioned this :

There are some methods that we share (or can share) across our DB implementations, like appending PARAM_SHOW_DELETED, PARAM_LIMIT, or PARAM_PROFILE.

These are currently spread across LocalBrowserDB, TabsAccessor, URLMetadata, and so on. It'd be nice to clean these up.

Question 1. Now how do I get some more context on what exactly is the bug and what is required to be done ?

As of now there seems to be 2 patches already submitted from what I understood (and please correct if my understanding is wrong here). So to get some context about the bug I went ahead and opened up the first patch submitted here.

It gave me some idea as to at least where exactly is the code itself that needs to be fixed. And I found it here

Question 2. Am I on the right track on how to figure out the code that needs to be fixed ?

Question 3. Even after reaching the DBUtils.java file I could not find any documentation about what the class basically does, or where does it fit into the whole picture. Could someone please help me with this, as to how do I figure out what a class is supposed to be doing etc. or at least some documentation around it?

Sebastian Zartner
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qre0ct
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1 Answers1

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You're on the right path. Basically, the What Can I Do For Mozilla website is a quick and easy way to let you discover projects you might be interested in, so it's the first gateway to the coding contributions.

That said, you did good in picking a bug to start off. However, as you saw the bug was already being worked on by somebody else (marked as Assigned). Your best bet is to find some new "good first bug" to work on. This might be a complicated task, as Bug's Ahoy shows only a few not owned good first bugs.

You should try to get in touch with the Fennec team, either via email or IRC (the latter for quicker responses).

Now, to answer your questions, in a more general way

Question 1. Now how do I get some more context on what exactly is the bug and what is required to be done ?

Usually, this should be described in the first comment in the bug, on Bugzilla. If that's not the case, feel free to drop a message there and ask for more directions. You can also flag the reporter or the mentor of the bug using the needinfo functionality, as they are usually better shown.

As you can see, somebody asked for more info in comment 1 and some new directions were given.

In general, you won't find a patch with code on the bug itself, but you might find links to files and more precise directions on what to change and how. If not, again, feel free to ping the reporter and/or mentor.

Question 2. Am I on the right track on how to figure out the code that needs to be fixed ?

You're on the right path. In general, if there are no links to files or DXR on the bug, but some code is mentioned, you can look it up using DXR, as you did.

Question 3. Even after reaching the DBUtils.java file I could not find any documentation about what the class basically does, or where does it fit into the whole picture. Could someone please help me with this, as to how do I figure out what a class is supposed to be doing etc. or at least some documentation around it?

What I usually do when navigating the Firefox code and need some more background on a not so well documented class, is browse the change log for that file, clicking on the Log button in the top-right panel on DXR (when displaying the file). It will show you a list of bugs that affected the file. You can even trace back the original file that implemented it, to get more context.

On the other hand, if you're only interested to the history of a single line of code within a file, then the blame tool is your friend. It tells you who last touched the line, the changeset and the related bug number. That is also accessible from where you can find the Log, here.

In the case of DBUtils.java, however, it looks like the class just holds some utility functions for database access.

To see how something is being used within the Firefox codebase, you can still use DXR. Here's a sample search for the DBUtils object.

Dexter
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