Re: reporting bugs

["Martin v. Loewis" <martin at loewis dot home dot cs dot tu-berlin dot de>]

> Some time ago I posted a bug report with patch (that worked for me) but never
> got any reply. Was my mail lost? Was the patch too bad/stupid/wrong/breaking
> other stuff? Was the problem unclear? Or had the good guys just no time for
> that particular problem?

It's hard to tell. If you really used the 'gccbug' script, then yes,
you should have gotten an automatic confirmation, together with a PR
report number. If you didn't, I really like to investigate this
incident, as it is critical that the GNATS tracking really works.

If, on the other hand, you merely sent a message to
gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org, then you can't expect an automated response. As
it turns out, you can't expect a human response, either, because of
the high volume and the few people doing bug tracking - this is why we
set up the GNATS system. However, you can, in this case, check the
mailing list archives whether the message has been received.

If you accompanied it with a patch, it is much better to post to
gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org - it has a higher chance of not being ignored
there.

> $ info gcc
> ->Bugs
> -->Where: Bug Lists
> --->Please read `<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/bugs.html>' 
> ---->Reporting Bugs - The gcc info manual, section Bugs contains complete instructions 
> 
> back to step 1   :-/

Well, reading the manual is the better choice. Most people don't, so
the online version is a quick summary of the really crucial
information that people should read even if they have never heard
about info.

> $ info gcc
> ->Bugs
> -->Reporting: Bug Reporting
> --->You may find additional and/or more up-to-date instructions at
>     `<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/bugs.html>
> you guess it:
> ---->Reporting Bugs - The gcc info manual, section Bugs contains complete

As an intelligent being, I hope you won't process such instructions
step-by-step, without any look-ahead whatsoever. Just read on.

> I suggest electing one authorative set of documentation and removal
> of the circular links.

The authorative source of information is the manual. Unfortunately, we
can't update the manual on each user's system, so we have to have more
recent information on-line - like the existence of GNATS.

Regards,
Martin