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| <h3 class="section">18.2 How to Report Bugs</h3> |
| |
| <p><a name="index-bug-reports-178"></a><a name="index-bugs_002c-reporting-179"></a> |
| A number of companies and individuals offer support for <span class="sc">gnu</span> |
| products. If you obtained the binary utilities from a support |
| organization, we recommend you contact that organization first. |
| |
| <p>You can find contact information for many support companies and |
| individuals in the file <samp><span class="file">etc/SERVICE</span></samp> in the <span class="sc">gnu</span> Emacs |
| distribution. |
| |
| <p>In any event, we also recommend that you send bug reports for the binary |
| utilities to <a href="https://bugs.linaro.org/">https://bugs.linaro.org/</a>. |
| |
| <p>The fundamental principle of reporting bugs usefully is this: |
| <strong>report all the facts</strong>. If you are not sure whether to state a |
| fact or leave it out, state it! |
| |
| <p>Often people omit facts because they think they know what causes the |
| problem and assume that some details do not matter. Thus, you might |
| assume that the name of a file you use in an example does not matter. |
| Well, probably it does not, but one cannot be sure. Perhaps the bug is |
| a stray memory reference which happens to fetch from the location where |
| that pathname is stored in memory; perhaps, if the pathname were |
| different, the contents of that location would fool the utility into |
| doing the right thing despite the bug. Play it safe and give a |
| specific, complete example. That is the easiest thing for you to do, |
| and the most helpful. |
| |
| <p>Keep in mind that the purpose of a bug report is to enable us to fix the bug if |
| it is new to us. Therefore, always write your bug reports on the assumption |
| that the bug has not been reported previously. |
| |
| <p>Sometimes people give a few sketchy facts and ask, “Does this ring a |
| bell?” This cannot help us fix a bug, so it is basically useless. We |
| respond by asking for enough details to enable us to investigate. |
| You might as well expedite matters by sending them to begin with. |
| |
| <p>To enable us to fix the bug, you should include all these things: |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The version of the utility. Each utility announces it if you start it |
| with the <samp><span class="option">--version</span></samp> argument. |
| |
| <p>Without this, we will not know whether there is any point in looking for |
| the bug in the current version of the binary utilities. |
| |
| <li>Any patches you may have applied to the source, including any patches |
| made to the <code>BFD</code> library. |
| |
| <li>The type of machine you are using, and the operating system name and |
| version number. |
| |
| <li>What compiler (and its version) was used to compile the utilities—e.g. |
| “<code>gcc-2.7</code>”. |
| |
| <li>The command arguments you gave the utility to observe the bug. To |
| guarantee you will not omit something important, list them all. A copy |
| of the Makefile (or the output from make) is sufficient. |
| |
| <p>If we were to try to guess the arguments, we would probably guess wrong |
| and then we might not encounter the bug. |
| |
| <li>A complete input file, or set of input files, that will reproduce the |
| bug. If the utility is reading an object file or files, then it is |
| generally most helpful to send the actual object files. |
| |
| <p>If the source files were produced exclusively using <span class="sc">gnu</span> programs |
| (e.g., <samp><span class="command">gcc</span></samp>, <samp><span class="command">gas</span></samp>, and/or the <span class="sc">gnu</span> <samp><span class="command">ld</span></samp>), then it |
| may be OK to send the source files rather than the object files. In |
| this case, be sure to say exactly what version of <samp><span class="command">gcc</span></samp>, or |
| whatever, was used to produce the object files. Also say how |
| <samp><span class="command">gcc</span></samp>, or whatever, was configured. |
| |
| <li>A description of what behavior you observe that you believe is |
| incorrect. For example, “It gets a fatal signal.” |
| |
| <p>Of course, if the bug is that the utility gets a fatal signal, then we |
| will certainly notice it. But if the bug is incorrect output, we might |
| not notice unless it is glaringly wrong. You might as well not give us |
| a chance to make a mistake. |
| |
| <p>Even if the problem you experience is a fatal signal, you should still |
| say so explicitly. Suppose something strange is going on, such as your |
| copy of the utility is out of sync, or you have encountered a bug in |
| the C library on your system. (This has happened!) Your copy might |
| crash and ours would not. If you told us to expect a crash, then when |
| ours fails to crash, we would know that the bug was not happening for |
| us. If you had not told us to expect a crash, then we would not be able |
| to draw any conclusion from our observations. |
| |
| <li>If you wish to suggest changes to the source, send us context diffs, as |
| generated by <samp><span class="command">diff</span></samp> with the <samp><span class="option">-u</span></samp>, <samp><span class="option">-c</span></samp>, or <samp><span class="option">-p</span></samp> |
| option. Always send diffs from the old file to the new file. If you |
| wish to discuss something in the <samp><span class="command">ld</span></samp> source, refer to it by |
| context, not by line number. |
| |
| <p>The line numbers in our development sources will not match those in your |
| sources. Your line numbers would convey no useful information to us. |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Here are some things that are not necessary: |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>A description of the envelope of the bug. |
| |
| <p>Often people who encounter a bug spend a lot of time investigating |
| which changes to the input file will make the bug go away and which |
| changes will not affect it. |
| |
| <p>This is often time consuming and not very useful, because the way we |
| will find the bug is by running a single example under the debugger |
| with breakpoints, not by pure deduction from a series of examples. |
| We recommend that you save your time for something else. |
| |
| <p>Of course, if you can find a simpler example to report <em>instead</em> |
| of the original one, that is a convenience for us. Errors in the |
| output will be easier to spot, running under the debugger will take |
| less time, and so on. |
| |
| <p>However, simplification is not vital; if you do not want to do this, |
| report the bug anyway and send us the entire test case you used. |
| |
| <li>A patch for the bug. |
| |
| <p>A patch for the bug does help us if it is a good one. But do not omit |
| the necessary information, such as the test case, on the assumption that |
| a patch is all we need. We might see problems with your patch and decide |
| to fix the problem another way, or we might not understand it at all. |
| |
| <p>Sometimes with programs as complicated as the binary utilities it is |
| very hard to construct an example that will make the program follow a |
| certain path through the code. If you do not send us the example, we |
| will not be able to construct one, so we will not be able to verify that |
| the bug is fixed. |
| |
| <p>And if we cannot understand what bug you are trying to fix, or why your |
| patch should be an improvement, we will not install it. A test case will |
| help us to understand. |
| |
| <li>A guess about what the bug is or what it depends on. |
| |
| <p>Such guesses are usually wrong. Even we cannot guess right about such |
| things without first using the debugger to find the facts. |
| </ul> |
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