608958 - Omnijar doesn't load preference files in reverse alphabetical order

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[Rain [:rain1] (inactive)]

The pref file "spec" at <https://developer.mozilla.org/En/A_Brief_Guide_to_Mozilla_Preferences#Preferences_Loading_and_Resolution> mentions that pref files are loaded in reverse alphabetical order. This doesn't seem to be true with omnijar, as we discovered while trying to get a Thunderbird omnijar build running (prefs in mailnews.js override prefs in all-thunderbird.js).

Per <http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mozilla/modules/libpref/src/nsPrefService.cpp?mark=871-881#856>, there doesn't seem to be anything that explicitly sorts the files in reverse alphabetical order as there is in <http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mozilla/modules/libpref/src/nsPrefService.cpp?mark=653-661#653>.

Comment 1

[[e-mail]]

It looks like the file names are hashed so that omnijar uses a predictable but meaningless order?

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Possible patch

Would this work perhaps?

Comment 3

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Created attachment 488454 [details] [diff] [review]
> Possible patch
> 
> Would this work perhaps?

Wouldn't that be alphabetical order?

Comment 4

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > Created attachment 488454 [details] [diff] [review] [details]
> > Possible patch
> > 
> > Would this work perhaps?
> 
> Wouldn't that be alphabetical order?

Oops, ignore that question, I should have read the next line more closely as well...

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

I've just tried this on Thunderbird's try server and it definitely fixes the MozMill issues that we were seeing before with omnijar.

Comment 6

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 488454 [details] [diff] [review]
Possible patch

r=dwitte. I assume we do want case-sensitive sorting here, since nothing says otherwise.

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I assume we do want case-sensitive sorting here, since nothing says otherwise.
The existing code does case-sensitive sorting too but our preference files all only use lower case anyway.

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 488454 [details] [diff] [review]
Possible patch

This patch is necessary for comm-central to be able to use omnijar.

Comment 9

[:Ms2ger (he/him; ⌚ UTC+1/+2)]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0ba0397270e2

Comment 10

[:Ms2ger (he/him; ⌚ UTC+1/+2)]

I updated <https://developer.mozilla.org/En/A_Brief_Guide_to_Mozilla_Preferences#Preferences_Loading_and_Resolution> to note that the sorting is case-sensitive and to remove the existing note about this bug.