[Erlang Systems]

5 Problem Reporting

This chapter describes how to submit a Problem Report (PR) on Erlang.

Note!

The procedure below is the default procedure for submitting PRs. If there are other means for reporting which are specific to your project or company routines and processes, those may be used.

You should NOT submit any PR before you have read this chapter.

5.1 Submitting Problem Reports

A PR is submitted with electronic mail to support@erlang.ericsson.se. There are three ways of submitting a problem report, by:

5.2 Helpful Hints

5.3 The Problem Report template

The Problem Report template has the following fields,

>Submitter-Id:   <Your id>
>Originator:     <Your name>
>Organization:   <The name of your company>
>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:       <product, component or concept name>
>Class:          < [ sw-bug | doc-bug | change-request | support ] (one line)>
>Release:        <Release version, e.g. OTP R2A, Erlang 4.5>
>Environment:        
        <machine, os, target, libraries (multiple lines)>
>Description:
        <precise description of the problem (multiple lines)>
>How-To-Repeat:
        <code/input/activities to reproduce the problem (multiple lines)
>Fix:       
        <How to correct or work around the problem, if known
         (multiple lines)>

A copy of the above template is found in the root directory of your Erlang installation under the name PR.template. Below, each field of the template is described in detail.

5.3.1 Submitter-Id

The submitter field must contain your submitter identity, which you got when the system was delivered to you. If you do not have a submitter id, contact support@erlang.ericsson.se.

The submitter id is a unique identification code assigned by the support site.

5.3.2 Originator

The originator field must contain your real name.

5.3.3 Organization

The organization field must contain your company name.

5.3.4 Confidential

The confidentiality class depends on the agreement between Erlang Systems and your company. The information in this field determines whether or not the information in your PR will be made available to other Erlang-users. There are two possible values (no is the default):

Tag Meaning
yes The information in the PR will not be publicly available.
no The information will be publicly available.
Confidential

5.3.5 Synopsis

The synopsis should be a short summary of the problem (no more than one line). You should copy the synopsis to the Subject line of your e-mail. A good synopsis will speed up the process of routing the PR to the appropriate person.

5.3.6 Severity

The severity of the problem has to be decided with the aid of the guidelines below. You can choose among the following values (serious is the default):

Tag Meaning
critical Product is not working, essential functionality is missing, no work around is known.
serious Product is not working properly, functionality is missing, work around is known
non-critical Product is working, irritating behavior, mismatch in documentation
Severity

5.3.7 Priority

The priority shows how soon you require a solution. You can choose among the following values (medium is the default):

Tag Meaning
high Solve as soon as possible, urgent
medium Solve for next release
low Solve for future release
Priority

5.3.8 Category

The category field should contain the name of the product, component or concept where the problem was discovered.

5.3.9 Class

This field contains the class of the PR. You can choose among the following classes (sw-bug is the default):

Tag Meaning
sw-bug Software bug
doc-bug Documentation bug
change-request Change request
support Support request
duplicate Duplication of a previous PR
mistaken Statement that previous PR was incorrect
Class

5.3.10 Release

The release field should contain the release version number of the product, component or concept on which you are reporting a problem.

5.3.11 Environment

This field must contain the description of the environment where the problem occurred; such as machine architecture, operating system, host and target.

5.3.12 Description

Describe the problem in as exact terms as possible in the field between the lines Description: and How-To-Repeat:. For information on what to include, see Helpful Hints.

5.3.13 How-To-Repeat

If you know how to reproduce the problem, describe how it is to be done between the lines How-To-Repeat: and Fix:.

5.3.14 Fix

If you know how to resolve the problem, describe how it is to be done below the line >Fix:.

5.4 Checking the fields

Before submitting the PR, please check all fields to see if they are correct.

If you have invoked send-pr from a shell, or from within GNU Emacs, check that the information automatically filled-in by send-pr is correct.

5.5 Submitting a PR

A PR is submitted by mailing the PR to support@erlang.ericsson.se.

5.6 Submitting a Problem Report from a Shell

You can use send-pr from a shell (sh, csh, tcsh, etc.) in order to fill in and submit a PR, provided you have installed a send-pr package.

When send-pr is invoked from a shell, it will try to determine what editor to use. The values for the environment variable EDITOR or VISUAL are looked up and are used for the choice of editor. If neither is found, vi will be used as the editor for the PR.

If send-pr is used from a shell, the editor is only provided with a template, and all the editing has to be done by the user. When you have finished the editing, save the file and quit the editor.

The PR is then submitted by pressing s when a prompt is shown.

5.7 Submitting a Problem Report from GNU Emacs

It is possible to fill in and submit a PR from within GNU Emacs. See the GNU info pages on GNATS for more information.


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