smailbug - send an smail problem report (PR)

smailbug [ site ] [ -f problem-report ] [ -t mail-address ]

[ -P ] [ -L ] [ -s severity ] [ -c address ] [ -V ]

send-pr is a tool used to submit problem reports (PRs) to a central support site. In most cases the correct site will be the default. This argument indicates the support site which is responsible for the category of problem involved. Some sites may use a local address as a default. site values are defined by using the aliases(5).

smailbug invokes an editor on a problem report template (after trying to fill in some fields with reasonable default values). When you exit the editor, smailbug sends the completed form to the Problem Report Management System (GNATS) at a central support site. At the support site, the PR is assigned a unique number and is stored in the GNATS database according to its category and submitter-id. GNATS automatically replies with an acknowledgement, citing the category and the PR number.

To ensure that a PR is handled promptly, it should contain your (unique) submitter-id and one of the available categories to identify the problem area. (Use `smailbug -L' to see a list of categories.)

The smailbug template at your site should already be customised with your submitter-id. If your site does not distinguish between different user sites, or if you are not affiliated with the support site, use `net' for this field.

The more precise your problem description and the more complete your information, the faster your support team can solve your problems.

-f problem-report

specify a file (problem-report) which already contains a complete problem report. smailbug sends the contents of the file without invoking the editor. If the value for problem-report is `-', then smailbug reads from standard input.

-s severity

Give the problem report the severity severity.

-t mail-address

Change mail address at the support site for problem reports. The default mail-address is the address used for the default site. Use the site argument rather than this option in nearly all cases.

-c address

Put address in the Cc: header of the message.

-P

print the form specified by the environment variable PR_FORM on standard output. If PR_FORM is not set, print the standard blank PR template. No mail is sent.

-L

print the list of available categories. No mail is sent.

-V

Display the smailbug version number.

Note: use smailbug to submit problem reports rather than mailing them directly. Using both the template and smailbug itself will help ensure all necessary information will reach the support site.

The environment variable EDITOR specifies the editor to invoke on the template.

default: vi If the environment variable PR_FORM is set, then its value is used as the file name of the template for your problem-report editing session. You can use this to start with a partially completed form (for example, a form with the identification fields already completed).

Problem reports have to be in a particular form so that a program can easily manage them. Please remember the following guidelines:

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describe only one problem with each problem report.

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For follow-up mail, use the same subject line as the one in the automatic acknowledgement. It consists of category, PR number and the original synopsis line. This allows the support site to relate several mail messages to a particular PR and to record them automatically.

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Please try to be as accurate as possible in the subject and/or synopsis line.

•

The subject and the synopsis line are not confidential. This is because open-bugs lists are compiled from them. Avoid confidential information there.

See the GNU Info file send-pr.info or the document Reporting Problems With send-pr for detailed information on reporting problems

Submit small code samples with the PR. Contact the support site for instructions on submitting larger test cases and problematic source code.

/tmp/p$$ copy of PR used in editing session

/tmp/pf$$ copy of empty PR form, for testing purposes

/tmp/pbad$$ file for rejected PRs

An Emacs user interface for send-pr with completion of field values is part of the send-pr distribution (invoked with M-x send-pr). See the file send-pr.info or the ASCII file INSTALL in the top level directory of the distribution for configuration and installation information. The Emacs LISP template file is send-pr-el.in and is installed as send-pr.el.

See send-pr.info or INSTALL for installation instructions.

Reporting Problems Using send-pr (also installed as the GNU Info file send-pr.info).

gnats(l), query-pr(1), edit-pr(1), gnats(8), queue-pr(8), at-pr(8), mkcat(8), mkdist(8).

Jeffrey Osier, Brendan Kehoe, Jason Merrill, Heinz G. Seidl (Cygnus Support)

Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.