User:Frédéric Massart

Moodle Development Kit

Every developer creates simple tools to avoid repeating cumbersome and/or boring tasks, and that is precisely why MDK has been created: to pack all those useful tools in a portable way accross systems. Initially developed in Bash, the project moved to Python to avoid dealing with inconsistencies between Unix platforms, and eventually to support Windows.

Key aspect

The most important aspect of MDK is that it works with Moodle instances. An instance of Moodle is a directory in which you have checked out a particular version and are using a specific database engine. This means that if you want to be working on Moodle 2.3 and 2.4 using both MySQL and PostgreSQL, you will have 4 directories. This choice was made because it is the safest, the clearest, and the most straightforward!

Typical workflows using MDK

To discover what MDK can do for you, here are a few common tasks.

Installing a new instance

We need to create a new instance of Moodle 2.4 and install it on PostgreSQL. We also want the instance to be ready for development by editing the config settings. And creating a bunch of users.

mdk create -i -v 24 -e pgsql -r dev users

This is the equivalent to doing:

mkdir /dir/to/stable_24/moodle
mkdir /dir/to/stable_24/moodledata
ln -s /dir/to/stable_24/moodle /var/www/stable_24
git clone git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git /dir/to/moodle
cd /dir/to/moodle
php admin/cli/install.php --wwwroot="http://localhost/stable_24" --dataroot=/dir/to/stable_24/moodledata --dbtype=pgsql --dbname=stable24 --dbuser=root --dbpass=root --dbhost=localhost --fullname="Stable 24 PostgreSQL" --shortname=stable_24 --adminuser=admin --adminpass=test --allow-unstable --agree-license --non-interactive
vim config.php
# Add the following settings:
# - $CFG->sessioncookiepath: /stable_24/
# - $CFG->debug: DEBUG_DEVELOPER
# - $CFG->debugdisplay: 1
# - $CFG->passwordpolicy: 0
# - $CFG->perfdebug: 15
# - $CFG->debugpageinfo: 1
# - $CFG->allowthemechangeonurl: 1
# - $CFG->cachejs: 0
# - $CFG->yuicomboloading: 0
# Include FirePHP Core
# Login to Moodle
# Create 10 students, 3 teachers and 3 managers.

Fixing an issue

mdk fix 12345
# Commiting your patch
mdk push -t

This is the equivalent to doing:

git branch --track MDL-12345-24 origin/MOODLE_24_STABLE
git checkout MDL-12345-24
# Commiting your patch
git push github MDL-12345-24
# Editing the tracker issue to add
# - Git repository URL
# - Git branch for 2.4
# - Git compare URL for 2.4

Peer reviewing a patch

Here we want to pull a patch from the tracker issue into a new testing branch, and then run the PHPUnit tests.

mdk pull 12345 -t
mdk phpunit -r

This is the equivalent to doing:

cd /dir/to/stable_24/moodle
git branch --tracker MDL-12345-24-test MOODLE_24_STABLE
git checkout MDL-12345-24-test
git pull git://github.org/Someone/moodle.git MDL-12345-24
# And now the PHPUnit part
mkdir /dir/to/stable_24/moodledata_phpu
vim config.php
# To add
# - $CFG->phpunit_dataroot = '/dir/to/stable_24/moodledata_phpu';
# - $CFG->phpunit_prefix = 'phpu_';
php admin/tool/phpunit/cli/init.php
phpunit

Upgrading the instances

We upgrade our instances as a new weekly release has just been released.

mdk upgrade -u --all

This is the equivalent to doing:

# For each instance of Moodle...
cd /dir/to/stable_24/moodle
git checkout MOODLE_24_STABLE
git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/MOODLE_24_STABLE
php admin/cli/upgrade.php --non-interactive --allow-unstable

Features

For a complete list of the commands MDK has to offer, read through the README file. For more details about each possible command, simply run them with the flag '--help'.

Installation

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:2x1cq-fred-7nqa6/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install moodle-sdk
sudo mdk init
# The next line prevents your from logging out and in again.
sudo su `whoami`

Mac OS

brew tap danpoltawski/homebrew-mdk
brew install moodle-sdk
sudo mdk init

Installing MDK on Mac requires Homebrew, to install it use the following command.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"

Windows

MDK has not been tested on Windows yet, but it should work, possibly after a few minor bug fixes.

Manual

Please follow the instructions from the README file.