Testing a fork of Sector distribution

This is my notes on how to test a fork of Sector. This is tricky because we are using composer create-project and Composer needs to recursively resolve package dependencies, and we're testing a change in a required package.

Background

We want to test that running composer create-project sparksinteractive/sector-project will do the right thing with a patch which we've submitted to a dependency, sparksinteractive/sector-distribution. Our change will be that we are modifying composer.json in the distribution project to use an updated patch to another contrib module.

• sector-project is the template, which is used with composer create-project
• sector-distribution is the profile, which depends on a large number of contrib modules

Preparation

• Identify your working directory
• Clone both projects there
• Modify sector-project repository to incorporate the local copy of sector-distribution
• Modify sector-distribution to incorporate the upstream patch
• Run create-project with some additional args
• Verify that the patch is applied

Caveats

If Composer appears to not notice your changes, clear your Composer cache with composer clearcache. This can add ~5min to your next download run.

Process

Identify your working directory

I'm going to do this in /tmp so all paths are short.

Clone both projects there

cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/sparksi/sector-distribution.git sector-distribution
git clone https://github.com/sparksi/sector-project.git sector-project

Modify sector-project to reference the local copy of sector-distribution

In /tmp/sector-project, modify composer.json to add a new local repository entry in the repositories key.

commit ee8af146a1643f3cfce4de6fafe00af77ab227a2 (HEAD -> local-distro)
Author: Chris Burgess <chris.burgess@catalyst.net.nz>
Date:   Tue Aug 3 23:44:53 2021 +1200

    Use local copy of sector-distribution

diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index d594d36..20e3bf0 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -39,6 +39,16 @@
         }
     },
     "repositories": {
+        "sector-distribution-local": {
+            "type": "path",
+            "url": "/tmp/sector-distribution",
+            "options": {
+                "symlink": false,
+                "versions": {
+                    "sparksinteractive/sector-distribution": "9.1.4"
+                }
+            }
+        },
         "packagist.drupal": {
             "type": "composer",
             "url": "https://packages.drupal.org/8"

Modify sector-distribution to reference the upstream patch we want

In /tmp/sector-distribution, modify composer.json to update the patch URL we want to change. (This could be any other change to the local distro codebase.)

commit a5dd78ffbb61667f5a191467f6d767d980b6f01c (HEAD -> patch-updates)
Author: Chris Burgess <chris.burgess@catalyst.net.nz>
Date:   Tue Aug 3 23:47:49 2021 +1200

    Update patch for Menu Block

diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index be7ab2e..aa931e4 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@
         "patches": {
             "drupal/menu_block": {
                 "No contextual link to edit menu": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2799821-2.menu_block.contextual_links.patch",
-                "Hide menu block title if empty": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2018-05-08/menu_block-hide_block_if_no_links-2757215-9.patch"
+                "Hide menu block title if empty": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-02-12/menu_block-hide_block_if_no_links-2757215-13.patch"
             },
             "drupal/entity_usage": {
                 "Better tracking per entity": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-06-16/per-node-tracking_3151920_4.patch"

Run create-project with the additional args required

Switch back to the parent directory, and run composer create-project with a --repository parameter which will instruct Composer to discover the local copy of sector-project and create the templated site in subdirectory sector-test.

cd /tmp
composer create-project --prefer-dist --repository='{"type":"path", "url":"/tmp/sector-project","options":{"symlink":false, "versions":{"sparksinteractive/sector-project":"9.1.4"}}}' sparksinteractive/sector-project sector-test

Keys and values here are much as documented in the changes for sector-project.

Verify that the output contains the correct applied patch

  - Applying patches for drupal/menu_block
    https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2799821-2.menu_block.contextual_links.patch (No contextual link to edit menu)
    https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-02-12/menu_block-hide_block_if_no_links-2757215-13.patch (Hide menu block title if empty)