913190 - Documentation points to Ravenbrook schema tool that is no longer maintained and out of date

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Documentation, defect)

Description

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:23.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/23.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130814063812

Steps to reproduce:

When searching for the schema of the current version of Bugzilla in production (4.2.x?), the documentation at several locations ( http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/4.2/en/html/configuration.html & http://www.bugzilla.org/developers/ for example ) points to a tool by Ravenbrook ( http://www.ravenbrook.com/tool/bugzilla-schema/ ) to auto-generate the current schema.  However, this tool has not been updated since 3.4.2 and Ravenbrook has indicated that they no longer intend to maintain it ( see: https://github.com/Ravenbrook/bugzilla-schema ).  As such, there is no obvious way to locate/generate the current schema.


Actual results:

Could not find current Bugzilla schema.


Expected results:

Documentation should contain links to locate the current Bugzilla chema or a tool to generate the current schema.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I have the scripts from ravenbrook to generate this, somewhere...  we were supposed to be setting it up on landfill and it got dropped through the cracks :|

Let me see if I can dig the stuff up and get it set up finally. (it'll probably be over the weekend at least)

Comment 2

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

If you can't find them, it looks like their old scripts are in their github account here: https://github.com/Ravenbrook/bugzilla-schema

Comment 3

[Nick Barnes]

Yes, that's the code as it currently stands.  I started work on a big batch update to it, but it looks as if it'll be some weeks before I've got enough free time to continue that.  Please, somebody, take it off my hands!

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

The new docs don't point to this tool, so that problem is solved. Do we need someone to resurrect this? I've managed to live without it...

Gerv

Comment 5

[Andre Klapper]

The schema was pretty helpful to create SQL queries but I guess any contributor could update the scripts in comment 2 if wanted...

Comment 6

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

(In reply to Andre Klapper from comment #5)
> The schema was pretty helpful to create SQL queries but I guess any
> contributor could update the scripts in comment 2 if wanted...

I recently took a look at the Ravenbrook scripts.  They're non-trivial and are only a tool to assist a largely manual process that has to be done incrementally through each BMO revision.  Not fun.

As to the need, it's very important for my research because many of the things in the actual BMO SQL database are not well described and are distinct from what is exposed via the API.  For example, the longdescs table that contains comments for each bug has a "type" that is supposed to help understand the nature of the comments.  The out-of-date Ravenbrook schema says that the type field can only be 0-4, yet there are types set to 5 & 6 in the database.  There is nowhere anyone can look to figure out what that means other than digging through individual bugs and trying to find the one where those new types were discussed and added (if they were even filed properly).

So my +1 to creating schemas for each major BMO release.  I'm not in a position to take this on right now, but I may be able to in the future.

Comment 7

[Frédéric Buclin]

As said in comment 4, the documentation from Bugzilla 5.0 and newer no longer mention this Ravenbrook tool at all. This is an external project to Mozilla, so I think here is not the best place to get traction on this project. Maybe contacting Nick Barnes directly, the original maintainer of this tool, would be more successful to see it revived.

Comment 8

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

A few things:

1) Gerv specifically asked in his comment (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=913190#c4) if people needed it, so I was responding to his question.

2) I'm not arguing specifically for this particular tool.  Rather, I'm arguing for the need of a schema of the current BMO, however it is created.  It doesn't matter to me how.  It's just frustrating to not be able to have any up-to-date reference for what's what in the BMO database.

3) If you're going to resolve this, wouldn't "WONTFIX" be a more accurate resolution than "WORKSFORME"?  

Cheers,

Mekki

Comment 9

[Frédéric Buclin]

(In reply to Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] from comment #8)
> arguing for the need of a schema of the current BMO, however it is created. 
> It doesn't matter to me how.  It's just frustrating to not be able to have
> any up-to-date reference for what's what in the BMO database.

BMO is just an instance of Bugzilla. You should ask Mozilla to provide such a schema if you need it.

Comment 10

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I'd be happy to host this on Landfill like originally planned if someone can do the work to get it up-to-date.

Comment 11

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

You're absolutely right.  This should be under bugzilla.mozilla.org, not Bugzilla.  BMO is a heavily modified instance of Bugzilla, and it's that schema that I'm referring to.  I'll open a new ticket.

Comment 12

[:glob ✱]

this isn't a BMO request; moving back upstream for visibility.

Comment 13

[Mekki MacAulay [:mekki] (he/him)]

Yeah, looking at it again, I screwed up and double-barrelled this bug.  The Ravenbrook stuff is Bugzilla, and the current schema is BMO.  It's best that it stay where it is in Bugzilla as closed/wontfix, with the out-of-date Ravenbrook link removed from documentation. So we're good.

I'll post a separate bug if necessary in BMO that is more specific to the current modified BMO schema.  Right now I'm managing without now that I have looked at some of the scripts that have updated the BMO schema (thanks to :glob).