Source Code

Getting the source code

The Adblock Plus source code can viewed throught the HG web interface. To get a local copy of the source run the following from the command line:

hg clone https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/

Similar repositories are set up for Element Hiding Helper and Adblock Plus Watcher. To reset your local copy to the state of a particular release run this command:

hg up -r ADBLOCK_PLUS_1_0_1_RELEASE

(replace ADBLOCK_PLUS_1_0_1_RELEASE by the tag of the required version).

See source code documentation for an overview.

HG client and documentation links

Creating an Adblock Plus build

To create a development build, go into the directory “adblockplus” (your local repository copy of the repository) and run this command:

perl make_devbuild.pl

This will create a file like adblockplus-1.2.3.4+.nnnnnnnnnn.xpi containing the source code currently in the repository and all available locales. To create a development build with only some locales specify these locales on the command line, e.g.:

perl make_devbuild.pl en-US de-DE ru-RU

Note: Running this script should work out of the box on Linux and OS X, on Windows you will need Perl and Info-ZIP. Both are part of the MozillaBuild package.

Setting up a test environment and running unit tests

Creating a build, installing it and restarting the browser to test each small change is tedious. For easier developing create a file “.profileDirs” in the root directory of your repository copy and list the profiles you want to test with, e.g.:

c:\Documents and Setting\<user>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<seed>.default
c:\Documents and Setting\<user>\Application Data\Songbird2\Profiles\<seed>.default

Then run the setupTestEnvironment.pl script from the command line:

perl setupTestEnvironment.pl

It will set up Adblock Plus in all profiles listed. Only install.rdf, chrome.manifest, XPCOM components and preferences will be actually copied, the browser will access your repository directly for the chrome files. By setting the nglayout.debug.disable_xul_cache preference to true you will make sure that changes in the repository appear in the browser without a browser restart.

Once the test environment is set up you can run the unit tests by going to chrome://mochikit/content/harness-abp.xul?autorun=1 in your browser.