GNU Info
(as.info)Bug Reporting
How to report bugs
==================
A number of companies and individuals offer support for GNU
products. If you obtained `as' from a support organization, we
recommend you contact that organization first.
You can find contact information for many support companies and
individuals in the file `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU Emacs distribution.
In any event, we also recommend that you send bug reports for `as'
to `bug-binutils@gnu.org'.
The fundamental principle of reporting bugs usefully is this:
*report all the facts*. If you are not sure whether to state a fact or
leave it out, state it!
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.
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.
Sometimes people give a few sketchy facts and ask, "Does this ring a
bell?" Those bug reports are useless, and we urge everyone to _refuse
to respond to them_ except to chide the sender to report bugs properly.
To enable us to fix the bug, you should include all these things:
* The version of `as'. `as' announces it if you start it with the
`--version' argument.
Without this, we will not know whether there is any point in
looking for the bug in the current version of `as'.
* Any patches you may have applied to the `as' source.
* The type of machine you are using, and the operating system name
and version number.
* What compiler (and its version) was used to compile `as'--e.g.
"`gcc-2.7'".
* 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.
If we were to try to guess the arguments, we would probably guess
wrong and then we might not encounter the bug.
* 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 `-S'
option. If you are using `gcc', use the options `-v
--save-temps'; this will save the assembler source in a file with
an extension of `.s', and also show you exactly how `as' is being
run.
* A description of what behavior you observe that you believe is
incorrect. For example, "It gets a fatal signal."
Of course, if the bug is that `as' 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.
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 `as' is out of synch, 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.
* If you wish to suggest changes to the `as' source, send us context
diffs, as generated by `diff' with the `-u', `-c', or `-p' option.
Always send diffs from the old file to the new file. If you even
discuss something in the `as' source, refer to it by context, not
by line number.
The line numbers in our development sources will not match those
in your sources. Your line numbers would convey no useful
information to us.
Here are some things that are not necessary:
* A description of the envelope of the bug.
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.
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.
Of course, if you can find a simpler example to report _instead_
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.
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.
* A patch for the bug.
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.
Sometimes with a program as complicated as `as' 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.
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.
* A guess about what the bug is or what it depends on.
Such guesses are usually wrong. Even we cannot guess right about
such things without first using the debugger to find the facts.
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