1<html lang="en"> 2<head> 3<title>Bug Reporting - Using as</title> 4<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> 5<meta name="description" content="Using as"> 6<meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.13"> 7<link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> 8<link rel="up" href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" title="Reporting Bugs"> 9<link rel="prev" href="Bug-Criteria.html#Bug-Criteria" title="Bug Criteria"> 10<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> 11<!-- 12This file documents the GNU Assembler "as". 13 14Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 152000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation, 16Inc. 17 18Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document 19under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 20or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; 21with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no 22Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the 23section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. 24 25--> 26<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> 27<style type="text/css"><!-- 28 pre.display { font-family:inherit } 29 pre.format { font-family:inherit } 30 pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 31 pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 32 pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } 33 pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } 34 span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } 35 span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } 36 span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } 37--></style> 38<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../cs.css"> 39</head> 40<body> 41<div class="node"> 42<a name="Bug-Reporting"></a> 43<p> 44Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Bug-Criteria.html#Bug-Criteria">Bug Criteria</a>, 45Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs">Reporting Bugs</a> 46<hr> 47</div> 48 49<h3 class="section">10.2 How to Report Bugs</h3> 50 51<p><a name="index-bug-reports-2229"></a><a name="index-assembler-bugs_002c-reporting-2230"></a> 52A number of companies and individuals offer support for <span class="sc">gnu</span> products. If 53you obtained <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> from a support organization, we recommend you 54contact that organization first. 55 56 <p>You can find contact information for many support companies and 57individuals in the file <samp><span class="file">etc/SERVICE</span></samp> in the <span class="sc">gnu</span> Emacs 58distribution. 59 60 <p>In any event, we also recommend that you send bug reports for <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> 61to <a href="https://support.codesourcery.com/GNUToolchain/">https://support.codesourcery.com/GNUToolchain/</a>. 62 63 <p>The fundamental principle of reporting bugs usefully is this: 64<strong>report all the facts</strong>. If you are not sure whether to state a 65fact or leave it out, state it! 66 67 <p>Often people omit facts because they think they know what causes the problem 68and assume that some details do not matter. Thus, you might assume that the 69name of a symbol you use in an example does not matter. Well, probably it does 70not, but one cannot be sure. Perhaps the bug is a stray memory reference which 71happens to fetch from the location where that name is stored in memory; 72perhaps, if the name were different, the contents of that location would fool 73the assembler into doing the right thing despite the bug. Play it safe and 74give a specific, complete example. That is the easiest thing for you to do, 75and the most helpful. 76 77 <p>Keep in mind that the purpose of a bug report is to enable us to fix the bug if 78it is new to us. Therefore, always write your bug reports on the assumption 79that the bug has not been reported previously. 80 81 <p>Sometimes people give a few sketchy facts and ask, “Does this ring a 82bell?” This cannot help us fix a bug, so it is basically useless. We 83respond by asking for enough details to enable us to investigate. 84You might as well expedite matters by sending them to begin with. 85 86 <p>To enable us to fix the bug, you should include all these things: 87 88 <ul> 89<li>The version of <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp>. <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> announces it if you start 90it with the ‘<samp><span class="samp">--version</span></samp>’ argument. 91 92 <p>Without this, we will not know whether there is any point in looking for 93the bug in the current version of <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp>. 94 95 <li>Any patches you may have applied to the <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> source. 96 97 <li>The type of machine you are using, and the operating system name and 98version number. 99 100 <li>What compiler (and its version) was used to compile <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp>—e.g. 101“<code>gcc-2.7</code>”. 102 103 <li>The command arguments you gave the assembler to assemble your example and 104observe the bug. To guarantee you will not omit something important, list them 105all. A copy of the Makefile (or the output from make) is sufficient. 106 107 <p>If we were to try to guess the arguments, we would probably guess wrong 108and then we might not encounter the bug. 109 110 <li>A complete input file that will reproduce the bug. If the bug is observed when 111the assembler is invoked via a compiler, send the assembler source, not the 112high level language source. Most compilers will produce the assembler source 113when run with the ‘<samp><span class="samp">-S</span></samp>’ option. If you are using <code>gcc</code>, use 114the options ‘<samp><span class="samp">-v --save-temps</span></samp>’; this will save the assembler source in a 115file with an extension of <samp><span class="file">.s</span></samp>, and also show you exactly how 116<samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> is being run. 117 118 <li>A description of what behavior you observe that you believe is 119incorrect. For example, “It gets a fatal signal.” 120 121 <p>Of course, if the bug is that <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> gets a fatal signal, then we 122will certainly notice it. But if the bug is incorrect output, we might not 123notice unless it is glaringly wrong. You might as well not give us a chance to 124make a mistake. 125 126 <p>Even if the problem you experience is a fatal signal, you should still say so 127explicitly. Suppose something strange is going on, such as, your copy of 128<samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> is out of sync, or you have encountered a bug in the C 129library on your system. (This has happened!) Your copy might crash and ours 130would not. If you told us to expect a crash, then when ours fails to crash, we 131would know that the bug was not happening for us. If you had not told us to 132expect a crash, then we would not be able to draw any conclusion from our 133observations. 134 135 <li>If you wish to suggest changes to the <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> source, send us context 136diffs, as generated by <code>diff</code> with the ‘<samp><span class="samp">-u</span></samp>’, ‘<samp><span class="samp">-c</span></samp>’, or ‘<samp><span class="samp">-p</span></samp>’ 137option. Always send diffs from the old file to the new file. If you even 138discuss something in the <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> source, refer to it by context, not 139by line number. 140 141 <p>The line numbers in our development sources will not match those in your 142sources. Your line numbers would convey no useful information to us. 143</ul> 144 145 <p>Here are some things that are not necessary: 146 147 <ul> 148<li>A description of the envelope of the bug. 149 150 <p>Often people who encounter a bug spend a lot of time investigating 151which changes to the input file will make the bug go away and which 152changes will not affect it. 153 154 <p>This is often time consuming and not very useful, because the way we 155will find the bug is by running a single example under the debugger 156with breakpoints, not by pure deduction from a series of examples. 157We recommend that you save your time for something else. 158 159 <p>Of course, if you can find a simpler example to report <em>instead</em> 160of the original one, that is a convenience for us. Errors in the 161output will be easier to spot, running under the debugger will take 162less time, and so on. 163 164 <p>However, simplification is not vital; if you do not want to do this, 165report the bug anyway and send us the entire test case you used. 166 167 <li>A patch for the bug. 168 169 <p>A patch for the bug does help us if it is a good one. But do not omit 170the necessary information, such as the test case, on the assumption that 171a patch is all we need. We might see problems with your patch and decide 172to fix the problem another way, or we might not understand it at all. 173 174 <p>Sometimes with a program as complicated as <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> it is very hard to 175construct an example that will make the program follow a certain path through 176the code. If you do not send us the example, we will not be able to construct 177one, so we will not be able to verify that the bug is fixed. 178 179 <p>And if we cannot understand what bug you are trying to fix, or why your 180patch should be an improvement, we will not install it. A test case will 181help us to understand. 182 183 <li>A guess about what the bug is or what it depends on. 184 185 <p>Such guesses are usually wrong. Even we cannot guess right about such 186things without first using the debugger to find the facts. 187</ul> 188 189 </body></html> 190 191