Cygnus Solutions uses PRMS and send-pr extensively for their support activities, finding problem tracking to be a crucial part of everyday business. Cygnus Solutions supports the GNU compiling tools, including PRMS and send-pr, on over 150 native and cross-platform environments.
With each shipment of the GNUPro Toolkit, customers receive the latest version of send-pr with an up-to-date listing of valid categories (values for the >Category: field; see also Valid Categories). Using electronis mail, customers can communicate their problems effectively to Cygnus Solutions and then automatically receive confirmation and notification of changes in the status of their reported problems.
As an example, let’s pretend you’re a customer of Cygnus Solutions, and that you’re having a problem compiling some software using the GNU C compiler, which Cygnus Solutions supports.
Assume that you’re getting an error in the bifrabulator program wherein the prestidigitation routines don’t match with the whatsitsname.
You’ve made sure you’re following the rules of the program and checked and found that the bug isn’t already known (by seeing the list of reported bugs in Fixed problems). In other words, you’re pretty sure you’ve found a bug and you’re going to report the bug using send-pr.
It really doesn’t matter whether you use send-pr from the shell or from within Emacs. If you use Emacs as a primary editor, calling send-pr from the ffb shell is likely to start send-pr in an Emacs buffer anyway.
So,
since your company, Imaginary Software, Ltd., uses GNU software extensively,
you’re pretty familiar with Emacs; so, from within Emacs, in the buffer,
use the keystroke combination, M-x,
and, in the Emacs buffer, type send-pr,
to display the following output on your monitor.
SEND-PR:
-*- text -*-
SEND-PR: Lines starting
with ‘SEND-PR’
will be removed
SEND-PR: automatically
as well as all comments (the text
SEND-PR: below enclosed
in '<' and '>').
SEND-PR: Please consult
the manual if you are not sure
SEND-PR: how to fill
out a problem report.
SEND-PR:
SEND-PR: Choose from
the following categories:
SEND-PR:
SEND-PR: bfd
binutils bison
SEND-PR: byacc
clib config
SEND-PR: cvs
diff doc
SEND-PR: emacs
flex g++
glob gprof
grep
SEND-PR: gdb
glob kerberos
SEND-PR: ld
libg++ libiberty
SEND-PR: make
makeinfo mas
SEND-PR: newlib
other patch
SEND-PR: rcs
readline send-pr SEND-PR: test
texindex texinfo
bifrabulator <---note: this category is fake
To: cygnus-bugs@cygnus.com
Subject:
From: jeffrey@imaginary.com
X-send-pr-version: send-pr
3.97-97r1
>Submitter-Id: imaginary
>Originator: Jeffrey
Osier
>Organization: Imaginary
Software, Ltd.
>Confidential: <[
yes | no ] (one
line)>
>Synopsis: <synopsis
of the problem (one line)>
>Severity: <[ non-critical
| serious | critical ]
(one line)>
>Priority: <[ low
| medium | high ] (one
line)>
>Category: <name
of the product (one line)>
>Class: <[sw-bug|doc-bug|change-request|support](oneline)>
>Release: <release
number or tag (one line)>
>Environment: <machine,
os, target, libraries
(multiple lines)>
System: SunOS imaginary.com
4.1.1 1 sun4
Architecture: sun4
>Description: <precise
description of the problem (multiple
lines)>
>How-To-Repeat: <code/input/activities
to reproduce (multiple lines)>
>Fix:
-----Emacs: *send-pr* (send-pr Fill)----All-----------------------
>Category: other[]
>Submitter-Id: imaginary
>Originator: Jeffrey
Osier
>Organization: Imaginary
Software, Ltd.
>Confidential: no
>Synopsis: bifrabulator
routines don’t
match
>Severity: serious
>Priority: medium
>Category: bifrabulator
>Class: sw-bug
>Release: progressive-970601
>Environment:
System: SunOS imaginary.com
4.1.1 1 sun4
Architecture: sun4 (SPARC)
>Description:
The following code
I fed into the bifrabulator came
back with a strange
error. apparently, the prestidigitation
routine doesn’t
match with the whatsitsname in all cases.
>How-To-Repeat: call the
bifrabulator on the following code.
code sample...
>Fix:
-----Emacs: *send-pr* (send-pr Fill)----All--------------------------
To send the problem report use: C-c C-c
You use the keystroke combination, C-c, C-c, and off send-pr goes. Now, you depend on Cygnus Solutions to figure out the answer to the problem. Soon afterward, you get the following message from Cygnus Solutions.
Thank you very much for your
problem report.
It has the internal identification:
g++/1425.
The individual assigned to
look at your bug is: hacker
(F.B. Hacker)
Category: bifrabulator
Responsible: hacker
Synopsis: bifrabulator routines
don’t
match
Arrival-Date: Sat Feb 30
03:12:55 1993
This is your receipt that the bug has been accepted and forwarded to the responsible party.
A while later, you get the analysis:
To: jeffrey@imaginary.com
From: hacker@cygnus.com
Subject: Re: bifrabulator/1425:
routines don’t
match
Reply-To: hacker@cygnus.com
Got your message, Jeff. It seems that the bifrabulator was confusing the prestidigitation routines with the realitychecker when lexically parsing the whatsitsname.
I'm working on robustisizing the bifrabulator now.
How about lunch next week?
--
F.B. Hacker
Cygnus Solutions, Sunnyvale,
CA 408 542 9601
#include <std-disclaimer.h>
About the same time, we get another message from Cygnus Solutions.
From: hacker@cygnus.com
To: jeffrey@imaginary.com
Subject: Re: bifrabulator/1425:
doesn’t
match prestidig
Reply-To: hacker@cygnus.com
'F.B. Hacker' changed the state to 'analyzed'.
State-Changed-From-To: open-analyzed
State-Changed-By: hacker
State-Changed-When: Fri Feb
31 1993 08:59:16 1993
State-Changed-Why: figured
out the problem, working on a patch
&nbs
f61
p;
this afternoon
--
F.B. Hacker
Cygnus Solutions, Sunnyvale,
CA 408 542 9601
#include <std-disclaimer.h>
The bug has now been analyzed, and Cygnus Solutions is working on a fix.
Sometime later, we get more mail from F.B.:
To: jeffrey@imaginary.com
From: hacker@cygnus.com
Subject: Re: bifrabulator/1425:
routines don’t
match
Reply-To: hacker@cygnus.com
There’s a patch now that you can ftp over and check out.
Hey, that joke you sent me
was great! The one about the strings walking into a bar... my boss laughed
for an hour!
--
F.B. Hacker
Cygnus Solutions, Sunnyvale,
CA 408 542 9601
#include <std-disclaimer.h>
And then, you receive another response.
From: hacker@cygnus.com
To: jeffrey@imaginary.com
Subject: Re: bifrabulator/1425:
doesn’t
match prestidig
Reply-To: hacker@cygnus.com
'F.B. Hacker' changed the state to 'feedback'.
State-Changed-From-To: analyzed-feedback
State-Changed-By: hacker
State-Changed-When: Fri Feb
31 1993 23:43:16 1993
State-Changed-Why:
got
the patch finished, notified Jeff at Imaginary Software
--
F.B. Hacker
Cygnus Solutions, Sunnyvale,
CA 408 542 9601
#include <std-disclaimer.h>
The bug has gone into feedback status now, until you get the patch, install it and test it. When everything tests well, you can mail F.B. back and tell him the bug’s been fixed, and he can change the state of the PR from feedback to closed. 0