I've been working with a programmer on an app and we've since gone our separate ways. I was passed on a copy of what was supposed to be the source code of everything at the end. However, I believe I'm missing a crucial file from the app build.
It's a pretty cool, but fairly basic 2D game. Built with Starling (gamua.com/starling) in ActionScript 3.
My question is, with all the files and assets mentioned below, is it possible to recover, reverse engineer, perhaps decompile, what I need to complete the app. Or will this project's code need to be re-written from scratch?
In my game 'build' I have following folders:
assets, bin-debug, extensions, libs, src, and system.
I am a bit of a noob in coding (as you've probably gathered), but it looks like I'm missing the .fla file from the 'src' folder. The contents of that src folder is:
com, utils (folders), Constants.as, Game.as, Main-app.xml, Main.as, Menu.as, Root.as
I was hoping that there is enough information in the .as files intact, that the restoring of the .fla to compile the build is not a big ask?
If other questions stand out to you, please ask.
Thanks!
Normally, Starling game is not built in the same way as a regular Flash game in the old days. You files look to me a lot like FlashDevelop project (there also should be .as3proj file somewhere in the root folder of the sources), which does not use FLA and compile the game from .as classes directly.
P.S. Or, maybe, Flash/Flex Builder project. Regardless, the possibility there were no FLAs to begin with is high.
We are currently using the RazorGenerator library to generate pre-compiled views for a project. Up until now we have been using the Visual Studio Extension to handle the generation, with these generated files also being committed to our repository.
This is causing bit of a pain point as we constantly have to resolve merge defects in a generated file. With that in mind I've set about to try and integrate the RazorGenerator.MsBuild target library into our build process so we can get away from storing the code-genned files in our repository.
So far I've disabled the VS Extension, and got the build target working as required however I've now lost intellisense and resharper support for the generated files as they are no longer part of the Solution.
I'm wondering if anyone else has come down this path before, Ideally what I'm trying to achieve is using the Build target to generate the cs files, removing the need to include these cs files in the repository, and still having Intellisense/Resharper coverage for the generated files.
Any thoughts?
I've resolved this problem by creating a an empty partial class for each of the cshtml templates which implements our own base class, which in-turn implements RazorGenerator.Templating.RazorTemplateBase.
By doing it this way we have access to all the publicly accessible properties and methods exposed on those classes which makes intellisense/resharper happy and at build time the templates .cs files are generated which do the heavy lifting for outputting the layout etc.
I'm currently looking at structuring my teams projects into a consistent manner that properly utilises packages and is easily version-controlled (via SVN).
I'm interested in any 'best practise' with regards to project structuring and how to use consistent packaging without lumping everything into a gigantic com.domainname.projects folder structure whilst maintaining that package structure. I'm also keen to use the src/bin/lib folder structure within each project.
I guess I'm asking 'how do you do it?' and 'why?'. Sorry if this is a bit abstract for Stack Overflow but you guys give the best answers I've found.
You might need to provide more information for a "complete" answer, like your shop size, number of active projects, how you build them, and how you reuse code.
Here are some insights anyway... hope I understood the direction of you question :)
If your projects are coupled and you release new versions of each reusable artifact frequently, a single svn repo keeping a folder for each should do it. Tag/branches should remain at the project level.
Having separate repos for code that is linked may become a maintainability headache.
Package1
src\com\domainname\Package1
source files
Package2
src\com\domainname\Package2
source files
Package3
src\com\domainname\Package3
source files
Lib
All packages export swcs into this folder
Problem with re-usability is going backwards -- sometimes changing something in the corelib will break all sorts of stuff going backwards, so I suggest doing running builds against it to create one large swc with all the packages in it.
I don't know why you're keen to use the bin\lib folder -- it makes more sense to have them point at things explicity rather than having parent projects export into children ...
It would be nice to have a more or less complete list over what files and/or directories that shouldn't (in most cases) be under source control. What do you think should be excluded?
Suggestion so far:
In general
Config files with sensitive information (passwords, private keys etc.)
Thumbs.db, .DS_Store and desktop.ini
Editor backups: *~ (emacs)
Generated files (for instance DoxyGen output)
C#
bin\*
obj\*
*.exe
Visual Studio
*.suo
*.ncb
*.user
*.aps
*.cachefile
*.backup
_UpgradeReport_Files
Java
*.class
Eclipse
I don't know, and this is what I'm looking for right now :-)
Python
*.pyc
Temporary files
- .*.sw?
- *~
Anything that is generated. Binary, bytecode, code/documents generated from XML.
From my commenters, exclude:
Anything generated by the build, including code documentations (doxygen, javadoc, pydoc, etc.)
But include:
3rd party libraries that you don't have the source for OR don't build.
FWIW, at my work for a very large project, we have the following under ClearCase:
All original code
Qt source AND built debug/release
(Terribly outdated) specs
We do not have built modules for our software. A complete binary is distributed every couple weeks with the latest updates.
OS specific files, generated by their file browsers such as
Thumbs.db and .DS_Store
Some other Visual Studio typical files/folders are
*.cachefile
*.backup
_UpgradeReport_Files
My tortoise global ignore pattern for example looks like this
bin obj *.suo *.user *.cachefile *.backup _UpgradeReport_Files
files that get built should not be checked in
I would approach the problem a different way; what things should be included in source control? You should only source control those files that:
( need revision history OR are created outside of your build but are part of the build, install, or media ) AND
can't be generated by the build process you control AND
are common to all users that build the product (no user config)
The list includes things like:
source files
make, project, and solution files
other build tool configuration files (not user related)
3rd party libraries
pre-built files that go on the media like PDFs & documents
documentation
images, videos, sounds
description files like WSDL, XSL
Sometimes a build output can be a build input. For example, an obfuscation rename file may be an output and an input to keep the same renaming scheme. In this case, use the checked-in file as the build input and put the output in a different file. After the build, check out the input file and copy the output file into it and check it in.
The problem with using an exclusion list is that you will never know all the right exclusions and might end up source controlling something that shouldn't be source controlled.
Like Corey D has said anything that is generated, specifically anything that is generated by the build process and development environment are good candidates. For instance:
Binaries and installers
Bytecode and archives
Documents generated from XML and code
Code generated by templates and code generators
IDE settings files
Backup files generated by your IDE or editor
Some exceptions to the above could be:
Images and video
Third party libraries
Team specific IDE settings files
Take third party libraries, if you need to ship or your build depends on a third party library it wouldn't be unreasonable to put it under source control, especially if you don't have the source. Also consider some source control systems aren't very efficient at storing binary blobs and you probably will not be able to take advantage of the systems diff tools for those files.
Paul also makes a great comment about generated files and you should check out his answer:
Basically, if you can't reasonably
expect a developer to have the exact
version of the exact tool they need,
there is a case for putting the
generated files in version control.
With all that being said ultimately you'll need to consider what you put under source control on a case by case basis. Defining a hard list of what and what not to put under it will only work for some and only probably for so long. And of course the more files you add to source control the longer it will take to update your working copy.
Anything that can be generated by the IDE, build process or binary executable process.
An exception:
4 or 5 different answers have said that generated files should not go under source control. Thats not quite true.
Files generated by specialist tools may belong in source control, especially if particular versions of those tools are necessary.
Examples:
parsers generated by bison/yacc/antlr,
autotools files such as configure or Makefile.in, created by autoconf, automake, libtool etc,
translation or localization files,
files may be generated by expensive tools, and it might be cheaper to only install them on a few machines.
Basically, if you can't reasonably expect a developer to have the exact version of the exact tool they need, there is a case for putting the generated files in version control.
This exception is discussed by the svn guys in their best practices talk.
Temp files from editors.
.*.sw?
*~
etc.
desktop.ini is another windows file I've seen sneak in.
Config files that contain passwords or any other sensitive information.
Actual config files such a web.config in asp.net because people can have different settings. Usually the way I handle this is by having a web.config.template that is on SVN. People get it, make the changes they want and rename it as web.config.
Aside from this and what you said, be careful of sensitive files containing passwords (for instance).
Avoid all the annoying files generated by Windows (thumb) or Mac OS (.ds_store)
*.bak produced by WinMerge.
additionally:
Visual Studio
*.ncb
The best way I've found to think about it is as follows:
Pretend you've got a brand-new, store-bought computer. You install the OS and updates; you install all your development tools including the source control client; you create an empty directory to be the root of your local sources; you do a "get latest" or whatever your source control system calls it to fetch out clean copies of the release you want to build; you then run the build (fetched from source control), and everything builds.
This thought process tells you why certain files have to be in source control: all of those necessary for the build to work on a clean system. This includes .designer.cs files, the outputs of T4 templates, and any other artifact that the build will not create.
Temp files, config for anything other than global development and sensitive information
Things that don't go into source control come in 3 classes
Things totally unrelated to the project (obviously)
Things that can be found on installation media, and are never changed (eg: 3rd-party APIs).
Things that can be mechanically generated, via your build process, from things that are in source control (or from things in class 2).
Whatever the language :
cache files
generally, imported files should not either (like images uploaded by users, on a web application)
temporary files ; even the ones generated by your OS (like thumbs.db under windows) or IDE
config files with passwords ? Depends on who has access to the repository
And for those who don't know about it : svn:ignore is great!
If you have a runtime environment for your code (e.g. dependency libraries, specific compiler versions etc.) do not put the packages into the source control. My approach is brutal, but effective. I commit a makefile, whose role is to downloads (via wget) the stuff, unpack it, and build my runtime environment.
I have a particular .c file that does not go in source control.
The rule is nothing in source control that is generated during the build process.
The only known exception is if a tool requires an older version of itself to build (bootstrap problem). In that case you will need a known good bootstrap copy in source control so you can build from blank.
Going out on a limb here, but I believe that if you use task lists in Visual Studio, they are kept in the .suo file. This may not be a reason to keep them in source control, but it is a reason to keep a backup somewhere, just in case...
A lot of time has passed since this question was asked, and I think a lot of the answers, while relevant, don't have hard details on .gitignore on a per language or IDE level.
Github came out with a very useful, community collaborated list of .gitignore files for all sorts of projects and IDEs that is worth taking a look.
Here's a link to that git repo: https://github.com/github/gitignore
To answer the question, here are the related examples for:
C# -> see Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Java
Eclipse
Python
There are also OS-specific .gitignore files. Following:
Windows
OS X
Linux
So, assuming you're running Windows and using Eclipse, you can just concatenate Eclipse.gitignore and Windows.gitignore to a .gitignore file in the top level directory of your project. Very nifty stuff.
Don't forget to add the .gitignore to your repo and commit it!
Chances are, your IDE already handles this for you. Visual Studio does anyway.
And for the .gitignore files, If you see any files or patterns missing in a particular .gitignore, you can open a PR on that file with the proposed change. Take a look at the commit and pull request trackers for ideas.
I am always using www.gitignore.io to generate a proper one .ignore file.
Opinion: everything can be in source control, if you need to, unless it brings significant repository overhead such as frequently changing or large blobs.
3rd party binaries, hard-to-generate (in terms of time) generated files to speed up your deployment process, all are ok.
The main purpose of source control is to match one coherent system state to a revision number. If it would be possible, I'd freeze the entire universe with the code - build tools and the target operating system.
I want to give credit to all open source libraries we use in our (commercial) application. I thought of showing a HTML page in our about dialog. Our build process uses ant and the third party libs are committed in svn.
What do you think is the best way of generating the HTML-Page?
Hard code the HTML-Page?
Switch dependency-management to apache-ivy and write some ant task to generate the html
Use maven-ant-tasks and write some ant task to generate the HTML
Use maven only to handle the dependencies and the HTML once, download them and commit them. The rest is done by the unchanged ant-scripts
Switch to maven2 (Hey boss, I want to switch to maven, in 1 month the build maybe work again...)
...
What elements should the about-dialog show?
Library name
Version
License
Author
Homepage
Changes made with link to source archive
...
Is there some best-practise-advice? Some good examples (applications having a nice about-dialog showing the dependencies)?
There are two different things you need to consider.
First, you may need to identify the licenses of the third-party code. This is often down with a THIRDPARTYLICENSE file. Sun Microsystems does this a lot. Look in the install directory for OpenOffice.org, for example. There are examples of .txt and .html versions of such files around.
Secondly, you may want to identify your dependencies in the About box in a brief way (and also refer to the file of license information). I would make sure the versions appear in the About box. One thing people want to quickly check for is an indication of whether the copy of your code they have needs to be replaced or updated because one of your library dependencies has a recently-disclosed bug or security vulnerability.
So I guess the other thing you want to include in the about box is a way for people to find your support site and any notices of importance to users of the particular version (whether or not you have a provision in your app for checking on-line for updates).
Ant task seems to be the best way. We do a similar thing in one of our projects. All the open source libraries are present in a specified folder. An Ant task reads the manifest of these libraries, versions and so on and generates an HTML, copies into another specified folder from where it is picked up by the web container.
Generating the page with each build would be wasteful if the libraries are not going to change often. Library versions may change, but the actual libraries don't. Easier to just create a HTML page would be the easiest way out, but that's one more maintenance head ache. Generate it once and include it with the package. The script can always be run again in case some changes are being made to the libraries (updating versions, adding new libraries).