Sign off on patches

A note about signing off on patches

Signing off on a patch means that the tester has confirmed the following:

They have stepped through any available test plan
They confirmed the functionality is working
They noted any anomalies and determined whether or not these block the patch from going into the next stage of QA.

A person signing off on a patch is responsible for making sure that the functionality is working as described in the patch (but we know that people miss stuff - that's OK! Just be willing to re-do your sign-off for any revisions and no one will complain at you).

On the other side, if you discover any problems with the patch, don't feel afraid to set the bug status to 'Failed QA' and leave a note about your findings.

Method 1: Using sandboxes

The community provides Sandboxes to test easily patches without any technical requirements.

You will not need to install anything on your computer.

Method 2: Using git bz

If you have a working Koha installation (a KohaDevBox for instance), you will be able to sign off patches easily using git bz.

git bz helps a lot in testing patches. There is a dedicated page explaining how it works.

Method 3: "Manually"

There is no good reason to do it this way, but in case git-bz is not working for you, you could do the following.

Download the patch

You can download the patch from Bugzilla using wget or fetch:

 $ wget -O <name_of_patch_file> http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/attachment.cgi?id=<attachment_number>

Or you can save it from your e-mail.

Apply patch

Apply someone's patch to your local Koha repository. You should create a new branch for this purpose.

For example:

$ git checkout -b qa_bug_xxxx
$ git am -3 -i -u <name_of_patch_file>

Test it

You test it.

Amend commit

You might want to add a comment about testing or fix something in the commit message. You can do so using:

git commit --amend

The subject line of the commit email will be taken from the first line of the commit.

Sign-off

If the patch is okay, you prepare a new one with your sign-off. -s = signoff

For example:

 $ git format-patch -s origin/master

Update Bugzilla

On Bugzilla, you should now update the status of the relevant bug from "Needs Signoff" to "Signed Off". You should also upload your signed-off patch as attachment and mark the initial one as obsolete.

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