[development] Getting rid of core hacks for drupal upgrade to happen. Need tips on the process.

[Sascha Grossenbacher]

Hi

Try http://coderamblings.com/blog/cvsing-back-your-drupal-site

Sascha

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Dipen <dipench at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>  I have started working on a large code base built using drupal 5.2 and now
> there is a requirement to upgrade it to 5.22 and eventually 6. The problem
> is that lot of core files (modules, include folder) was hacked over a period
> of last 1 year to make drupal work according to req, and things were
> obviously not done drupal way. I am working on identifying changes that were
> made to core and then would attempt on implementing those changes from a
> custom module, reverting the core to 5.2 clean state. The job would have
> been easier if source control management was used from start in the project,
> but that did not happen and hacks were made before SCM started recording
> them and hence I can not rely on svn history. What I am doing right now is
> the following:
> 1> I have downloaded drupal 5.2 for reference.
> 2> Have trunk of tainted project checked out.
> 3> Diffing module files one by one ( against 5.2 download in step 1, so
> diffing hacked node.module against 5.2 node.module) and recording changes to
> find out what changes were intended when the developer hacked the core (eg.
> node module file)
> For 3 to happen, I can write a script to get diff of all files in say
> includes folder, but that would give me just the diff file and it would be
> hard to study why were the changes done. But I am sure I can use it as a
> starting tool to find out which files have changed in core when measured
> against cleand drupal 5.2 and then focus on those files.
> I wanted suggestions and tips on:
> 1> Apart from svn history, diffing files one by one, does any one have
> suggestions to find out changes between hacked and clean file? Maybe at a
> folder level? Like diff the whole include folder or diff the whole modules
> folder. (I know about beyond compare, anything else?)
> 2> Any tips, experiences, suggestions on the process of removing core hacks
> and implementing them outside of core.
> 3> Any suggestions on the whole approach? If it can be made more efficient.
> I would like opinion of anyone who has dealt with core hacks and removed
> them to clear upgrade path.
> Thanks
> Dipen