Drupal Patch Testing For Anyone

Most of the development to drupal core happens through a patch review process. Even bigger changes, like the new database system, where development happens elsewhere, eventually go through a patch review process. This process can be intimidating to anyone who hasn't done it before or doesn't feel like they have a high enough skill level to contribute anything to core. In reality, anyone can review patches. Even individuals who can't write software at all.

Reviewing patches isn't just about knowing how to program. Someone who doesn't know how to program can help out with patch reviews. Let's take a look at some good places to start and to learn where anyone can review patches.

Getting Started

If you're interested in reviewing patches to drupal a good place to start is by reading the Reviewing Patches page on drupal.org. This page covers how the process works, coding standards, duplicate issues, and so much more.

Comment Reviews

Are you good with grammar? Or, even decent? Drupal is full of code comments that document what's going on. These need to be reviewed. For example, a comment in the newly committed patch to allow users to cancel their accounts (node 8 on drupal.org) looks like:

- // When a user is deleted, any content they created remains but the
+ // When a user account is canceled, any content they created remains but the
  // uid = 0. Their blog entry shows as "'s blog" on the home page. Records
  // in the watchdog table related to that user have the uid set to zero.

The line starting with - is a line being removed and the one starting with + is an addition. These comments need to be reviewed and need to be consistent with the comment standard in drupals coding standard. Anyone can provide feedback on these.

Usability

Usability is one of the top priorities in drupal 7. If you visit the Improvements to Core dashboard you'll see a list of top usability patches right up front. Imporvements to usability are more than coding a change. They require attention to detail and understanding what makes something usable to someone who doesn't know the system. So, if you're new to drupal this is a great place to offer your insights. If you are a designer, this is a place you can provide mock-ups.

Reviewing Patches

If you are familiar with PHP or JavaScript patch testing is a great place to get involved, win friends, and get core drupal developers to love you. A great place to learn how to patch review is from the drupal 7 co-maintainer webchick. She recently wrote a blog post about her 6 Pass Patch Review process. You may not be comfortable doing all the passes. Just doing one of the passes and providing feedback is valuable.

If someone want's to go deeper they are more than welcome to and you will be welcomed into the patch reviewing and testing party(?).

Additional Resources

• Writing Secure Code in drupal.
• How to apply a patch.
• Setting up a test environment to review patches.

If you have any additional resources please feel free to share.