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

[Angela Byron]

Check out the Hacked! module, which can tell you which (and with Diff  
module, how) core/contrib modules have been modified: http://drupal.org/project/hacked 
. Still some rough edges, but a great place to invest time in sprucing  
it up, since it's really useful.

On 1-Apr-10, at 8:34 AM, Dipen 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