1<html lang="en"> 2<head> 3<title>Bug Criteria - GNU Binary Utilities</title> 4<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> 5<meta name="description" content="GNU Binary Utilities"> 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="next" href="Bug-Reporting.html#Bug-Reporting" title="Bug Reporting"> 10<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> 11<!-- 12Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 132000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 14Free Software Foundation, Inc. 15 16Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document 17under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 18or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; 19with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no 20Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the 21section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. 22 23--> 24<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> 25<style type="text/css"><!-- 26 pre.display { font-family:inherit } 27 pre.format { font-family:inherit } 28 pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 29 pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 30 pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } 31 pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } 32 span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } 33 span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } 34 span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } 35--></style> 36<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../cs.css"> 37</head> 38<body> 39<div class="node"> 40<a name="Bug-Criteria"></a> 41<p> 42Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Bug-Reporting.html#Bug-Reporting">Bug Reporting</a>, 43Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs">Reporting Bugs</a> 44<hr> 45</div> 46 47<h3 class="section">19.1 Have You Found a Bug?</h3> 48 49<p><a name="index-bug-criteria-152"></a> 50If you are not sure whether you have found a bug, here are some guidelines: 51 52 53<a name="index-fatal-signal-153"></a> 54<a name="index-crash-154"></a> 55<ul><li>If a binary utility gets a fatal signal, for any input whatever, that is 56a bug. Reliable utilities never crash. 57 58 <p><a name="index-error-on-valid-input-155"></a><li>If a binary utility produces an error message for valid input, that is a 59bug. 60 61 <li>If you are an experienced user of binary utilities, your suggestions for 62improvement are welcome in any case. 63</ul> 64 65 </body></html> 66 67