getting LO source

users
#1

There being no answers to the long-standing issues with playing videos, I thought I'd take a look at the source for myself. Possibly a hopeless task, but anyway...

I fell at the first :-{ and couldn't even download the source. Not a promising start!

The page at
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/BuildingOnLinux
recommends using git, so I tried the suggested

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core libreoffice

only to be told

"Cloning into libreoffice'...
fatal: remote error: access denied or repository not exported: /libreoffice/core"

(I also tried git clone -n .... with the same result. I suspect the web page should show the -n ???)

Help please?

#2

Mike,

For me, it's downloading... I'm at 25% and no specific issue. I copy
pasted your line directly.

Try again now? Maybe a network or a server error that has since been fixed?

Gilles

#3

I just looked it up on the development page.
This text was given:

All our source code is hosted in git:

Clone: $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core #
        Clone: $ git clone http://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/libreoffice/core.git # slower

This was the text you listed:

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core libreoffice

By looking at the command line text you are using, it looks like you had the wrong command structure.
Looks like you added "libreoffice" after the "core" command.  Can you replace the #" with "libreoffice"?
Will it work that way?

#4

(resent - I think the 1st copy is stuck in moderation. Thanks to those who replied meanwhile)

Mike,

For me, it's downloading... I'm at 25% and no specific issue. I copy
pasted your line directly.

Try again now? Maybe a network or a server error that has since been fixed?

Thanks for the reply. red face time here: coming back, I found a straightforward typo on my command line. Which, being in a virtual machine, I'd retyped (correctly) when posting from my real desktop. (In mitigation, I'd left out the 'o' in libreoffice, which was just about at the line-wrap. You always see what you expect to see!)

Problem fixed. But just how long should I expect for LO to build? I've seen estimates on the net of and hour or two on a less powerful processor than my own: but I've always had the impression it would be a seriously long time.

#5

That does not depend only on your processor, but also on your mass storage device (HD or SSD), the use or not of ccache (for a second build) and the build options you have chosen (for example the number of parallel jobs). And probably on your OS too.

For me a complete build is about 2 hours with an i7 with 2 physical cores and an SSD, if I allow 2 parallel jobs to the build system. I use a Linux OS. On my previous PC it was about 4 hours with a HD and a i7 from an older generation.

Be patient. :slight_smile:

Best regards.
JBF

#6

Wise words. Thanks for your reply.

I left it running all evening; it took somewhere between 2.5 and 5.5 hours to complete (which it did first time of asking). This was a first-time build on a VM - quad 3.1GHz i5-3450 processor, 2Gb memory allocated and running Mint (was swapping more than I'd have wished).

Having established it would build and run (with the same video problem, incidentally), I finally looked at the sources. Now I begin to see why changes take so long.... not a comment in sight for one thing, and a spider's web of complexity. Sheesh! Nightmarish.

#7

Hi Mike,

Having established it would build and run (with the same video problem,
incidentally), I finally looked at the sources. Now I begin to see why
changes take so long.... not a comment in sight for one thing, and a
spider's web of complexity. Sheesh! Nightmarish.

The lack of significant comments stems from the original source code of
OpenOffice.org when it was released, which itself came from StarOffice
(after Sun bought the code). Most of the existing comments at the time
were also in German, and particularly concise or absconse.

Unfortunately, at least for the occasional person wanting to dive into
the code, heavy commenting does not seem to be widely adopted amongst
the currently active open source developers contributing to the project.
One might also bear in mind that the LibreOffice code base is huge -
certainly larger in lines of code than any other current open source
project.

As a non-developer trying to read the code for bug hunting, it has given
me migraines on many an occasion.

Alex

#8

Thanks. I'd forgotten the original would have been German (and StarOffice was actually my first foray into a 'proper' WP -- iirc Sun were giving it away at the time.)

Probably time this thread died off, the 'source' issue being resolved and purely down to my failure.

I've started another thread on the particular video issue I'm concerned with. If anyone can shed light there to help getting it resolved, I think not a few users would be grateful!

Thanks again to all who've replied here.

#9

Any pointers on how to minimise the pain of reading the code?

jonathon

#10

Any pointers on how to minimise the pain of reading the code?

Aspirin :wink:

Errm, seriously, not really, other than perhaps just focussing on one
area of the code. I tend to mostly focus on the database stuff, and have
recently started looking at memory leaks with the aid of Instruments.app
on MacOS, which does facilitate somewhat the fingerpointing and blaming
game for the bits of code it considers "wrong". Not that it always gets
it right mind.

With the database code, I started occasionally perusing the driver
classes when I was still using OpenOffice.org and trying to understand
how they were constructed and how they were intended to function. I held
the vain hope of developing my own driver class at the time (but for
which db backend I fail to recall now), realising very quickly that it
was out of my league, so I just kept opening up the cxx files and
scrolling through them, and then forgetting most of what I'd found
interesting as soon as I'd closed it. At the time, I was also subscribed
to the dba mailing list for OpenOffice.org where the devs from Sun
frequently intervened to explain this or that function, and parts of the
API. Unfortunately, the dba code side of things is heavily
undersubscribed in the behemoth project that is LibreOffice today in
terms of human investment, there is but one dba code caretaker who has a
dayjob other than helping out with LO, and a few other occasional
committers, mostly people working for Linux distros to fix bugs, or
GSOC-ing, thereby making it difficult to have increasing in-depth
knowledge and insights. That knowledge kind of tends to be assumed.

I would probably need several lifetimes to become proficient enough in
programming in C++ to be able to even dream of understanding each time
what is going on. I'd say, even with the amateur knowledge I have
currently, it has taken me more than 10 years of repeated blank staring
at lines of code to even start to comprehend, sadly...

Anyway, we are seriously digressing from the initial topic, so I'll stop
here...

Alex

#11

May the source be with you. :wink:

#12

Errm, seriously, not really, other than perhaps just focussing on one area of the code.

:frowning:

thereby making it difficult to have increasing in-depth knowledge and insights. That knowledge kind of tends to be assumed.

Not to mention that there used to be a great set of developer
documentation. I didn't grab it back when it was available, thinking it
would always be available, and today it is nowhere to be found.

I would probably need several lifetimes to become proficient enough in programming in C++

At least it isn't APL.

I'm delving into the "expert configuration" in ">Tools >LibreOffice

Advanced >Open Expert Configuration", trying to figure out how to get

LibO to behave the way I want it to.
And to find out what those options do, I have to study the source.

jonathon