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Re: gcc inst hosed after upgrading to cygwin 1.5.10x


The point was...

Second paragraph on that page:
Eric S. Raymond has written a wonderful article on how to write smart < http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html >questions. If you adhere to his guidelines, you'll have a very good chance of getting a high-quality response to your problem.


and the entire section under "Reporting guidelines"

Reporting guidelines
# Use a subject line that describes the issue well:

Good examples:

          "1.1.8: select bug (NT and 95)"
          "1.1.6: problem building perl"
          "1.1.8: question about catting binary files in bash"

Bad examples:

          "question?"
          "bug"
          "porting problem"
          "help!!!!"
          "bash question"
          "newbie needs help"
          "Question for Jane Simmons"
          "make"
          "gcc"
          "grep"
          (basically any single word subject)

This also applies to general discussion. It's very hard to follow the list when most of the subject lines look very similar.

# Try to confine your email to one problem per message. Do not reuse previous subjects to report unrelated problems.

# Reply to the email in the thread that you started rather than creating a new message for each reply. If you just send a new message every time you want to offer something about your problem, you will confuse people who want to help but are expecting the discussion to occur in the thread that you created.

# In your (detailed) description, show how to reproduce the problem. This means including a test case if at all possible.

# At the very least, always include which cygwin release you are using and give the operating system and its version number. E.g. "cygwin v1.3.33 under NT 4.0".

# Run cygcheck -s -v -r > cygcheck.out and include that file as an attachment in your report. Please do not compress the output. Just attach it as a straight text file so that it can be easily viewed.

# Avoid the use of exclamation marks or multiple question marks. They add nothing to the report and provide the impression that you are too excited to think calmly about the problem.

# Avoid personal details about why you need the problem rectified, how important it is for you to have it fixed, or how long you've worked on the problem. People will be more likely to look at your email if it is cut and dry, to the point, and uses a minimum of extra words.

# Do not assume that your problem is so trivial or so "well known" that it does not require any details or background from you. Many (most?) people who report problems fall into the trap of assuming that people are "clued into" their mental state when, in most cases, this is not the case.

As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself referring to your problem as the problem with XYZ rather than a problem with XYZ then your message is suspect. Using the in this context means that you are assuming that your problem is well known. Unless you can point to an email message thread or FAQ entry (either of which is a good idea, btw) please do not assume that the readers of your message will be familiar with your problem.
# Avoid expressions of incredulity "I can't believe that this is so broken!" or other editorializing. This should go without saying, really, but, sadly, many people can't stop themselves from expressing their outrage.


# Reporting that your problem "works fine" on some "other" UNIX platform or used to work ok in a previous Cygwin release is marginally useful data. However, this does not guarantee that you've uncovered a Cygwin problem. Cygwin can change its behavior between releases, sometimes to fix an operational problem and sometimes, well... because we've introduced a bug.

With regard to differing behavior from some flavor of UNIX: UNIXes vary in their behavior and Cygwin is basically a different flavor of UNIX. This is particularly true of programs which rely on specific malloc behavior, like being able to free a pointer twice or being able to access memory after freeing.

Another common problem is attempting to modify the contents of a C "string". On Cygwin (and many UNIXes) strings are stored in read-only memory. So, it is not possible to modify them. You can change this behavior with the gcc option -fwritable-strings but we suggest that it is better to change your program.

Note that, "It worked in a previous version of cygwin" observations are only relevant for modern versions of cygwin. The "B series" versions of Cygwin (B17, B18, B19, B20) are not modern versions. Save your fingers and don't even bother with comments about your experiences with these versions.

Many people seem to latch onto the fact that their issues do not seem to occur in other versions of UNIX or Cygwin and mention this in all followup email when people attempt to help them with the problem. However, this information is usually only useful in the first message and does not usually bear repeating.
# Keep in mind that there are over 1500 people on the mailing list. Try to avoid "me too" responses or reporting problems that have already been reported. It's hard enough keeping up with the volume as it is...


# Include a patch to fix the problem if you can. See the
how to contribute page for more information.

Lex Ein wrote:

Quoting: "One of the cygwin mailing lists is absolutely the proper place for reporting problems. The mailing lists were created for this express purpose. "

So, your point was?
L
Brian Ford wrote:

On Thu, 27 May 2004, Hans Horn wrote:


Folks,

after I had an upgrade orgy to cygwin 1.5.10.x, my gcc installation got
hosed. in particular: gcc: installation problem, cannot exec `cc1plus':
No such file or directory

completely uninstalling and then re-installing all gcc related stuff
doesn't help! Any clues / advice?



Just one:


Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html





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