| <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> |
| <html> |
| <!-- This file documents the GNU Assembler "as". |
| |
| Copyright (C) 1991-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
| |
| Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document |
| under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 |
| or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; |
| with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no |
| Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the |
| section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". |
| --> |
| <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 5.2, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> |
| <head> |
| <title>Using as: Bug Reporting</title> |
| |
| <meta name="description" content="Using as: Bug Reporting"> |
| <meta name="keywords" content="Using as: Bug Reporting"> |
| <meta name="resource-type" content="document"> |
| <meta name="distribution" content="global"> |
| <meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo"> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> |
| <link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top"> |
| <link href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" rel="index" title="AS Index"> |
| <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> |
| <link href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" rel="up" title="Reporting Bugs"> |
| <link href="Acknowledgements.html#Acknowledgements" rel="next" title="Acknowledgements"> |
| <link href="Bug-Criteria.html#Bug-Criteria" rel="prev" title="Bug Criteria"> |
| <style type="text/css"> |
| <!-- |
| a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} |
| blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} |
| div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.indentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| div.smallindentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em; font-size: smaller} |
| div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em} |
| kbd {font-style:oblique} |
| pre.display {font-family: inherit} |
| pre.format {font-family: inherit} |
| pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} |
| pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} |
| pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} |
| pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} |
| pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} |
| pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} |
| span.nocodebreak {white-space:nowrap} |
| span.nolinebreak {white-space:nowrap} |
| span.roman {font-family:serif; font-weight:normal} |
| span.sansserif {font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal} |
| ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} |
| --> |
| </style> |
| |
| |
| </head> |
| |
| <body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000"> |
| <a name="Bug-Reporting"></a> |
| <div class="header"> |
| <p> |
| Previous: <a href="Bug-Criteria.html#Bug-Criteria" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Bug Criteria</a>, Up: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" accesskey="u" rel="up">Reporting Bugs</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> |
| </div> |
| <hr> |
| <a name="How-to-Report-Bugs"></a> |
| <h3 class="section">10.2 How to Report Bugs</h3> |
| <a name="index-bug-reports"></a> |
| <a name="index-assembler-bugs_002c-reporting"></a> |
| |
| <p>A number of companies and individuals offer support for <small>GNU</small> products. If |
| you obtained <code>as</code> from a support organization, we recommend you |
| contact that organization first. |
| </p> |
| <p>You can find contact information for many support companies and |
| individuals in the file <samp>etc/SERVICE</samp> in the <small>GNU</small> Emacs |
| distribution. |
| </p> |
| <p>In any event, we also recommend that you send bug reports for <code>as</code> |
| to <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/gcc-linaro">https://bugs.launchpad.net/gcc-linaro</a>. |
| </p> |
| <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> |
| <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 symbol 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 name is stored in memory; |
| perhaps, if the name were different, the contents of that location would fool |
| the assembler 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> |
| <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> |
| <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> |
| <p>To enable us to fix the bug, you should include all these things: |
| </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li> The version of <code>as</code>. <code>as</code> announces it if you start |
| it with the ‘<samp>--version</samp>’ argument. |
| |
| <p>Without this, we will not know whether there is any point in looking for |
| the bug in the current version of <code>as</code>. |
| </p> |
| </li><li> Any patches you may have applied to the <code>as</code> source. |
| |
| </li><li> The type of machine you are using, and the operating system name and |
| version number. |
| |
| </li><li> What compiler (and its version) was used to compile <code>as</code>—e.g. |
| “<code>gcc-2.7</code>”. |
| |
| </li><li> The command arguments you gave the assembler to assemble your example and |
| 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. |
| </p> |
| </li><li> A complete input file that will reproduce the bug. If the bug is observed when |
| the assembler is invoked via a compiler, send the assembler source, not the |
| high level language source. Most compilers will produce the assembler source |
| when run with the ‘<samp>-S</samp>’ option. If you are using <code>gcc</code>, use |
| the options ‘<samp>-v --save-temps</samp>’; this will save the assembler source in a |
| file with an extension of <samp>.s</samp>, and also show you exactly how |
| <code>as</code> is being run. |
| |
| </li><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 <code>as</code> 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> |
| <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 |
| <code>as</code> 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. |
| </p> |
| </li><li> If you wish to suggest changes to the <code>as</code> source, send us context |
| diffs, as generated by <code>diff</code> with the ‘<samp>-u</samp>’, ‘<samp>-c</samp>’, or ‘<samp>-p</samp>’ |
| option. Always send diffs from the old file to the new file. If you even |
| discuss something in the <code>as</code> 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. |
| </p></li></ul> |
| |
| <p>Here are some things that are not necessary: |
| </p> |
| <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> |
| <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> |
| <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> |
| <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. |
| </p> |
| </li><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> |
| <p>Sometimes with a program as complicated as <code>as</code> 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> |
| <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. |
| </p> |
| </li><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. |
| </p></li></ul> |
| |
| <hr> |
| <div class="header"> |
| <p> |
| Previous: <a href="Bug-Criteria.html#Bug-Criteria" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Bug Criteria</a>, Up: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" accesskey="u" rel="up">Reporting Bugs</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| |
| |
| </body> |
| </html> |
