[vox-tech] what happened to debian reportbug? (and vim's hebrewp)

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 09 Jun 03,  2:10 PM, Mike Simons <msimons@moria.simons-clan.com> said:
> On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 09:23:56AM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > i just sent in a bug report, with a patch, to debian using reportbug.
> > 
> > i've always remembered reportbug asking for special tags, like "patch
> > included" or "security related", but it didn't ask me this time around.
> [...]
> > does anyone know why this has changed?  seemed like a good system; i'm
> > surprised they removed the patch and security tags.
> 
>   there are a bunch of bug reporting scripts for debian, if you are sure
> you used "reportbug" (as opposed to "bug"),

yeah, i definitely used "reportbug".   "bug" was taken out of debian and
is no longer available.

> then telling which version
> of reportbug you are using would be Very Useful.  :)

ii  reportbug      2.10.1

>   It appears that reportbug supports multiple prompt modes:
> ===
> MODES = {'novice': 'Offer simple prompts, bypassing technical questions.',
>          'standard': 'Offer more extensive prompts, including asking about '
>          'things that a moderately sophisticated user would be expected to '
>          'know about Debian.',
>          'advanced' : 'Like standard, but assumes you know a bit more about '
>          'Debian, including "incoming".',
>          'expert': 'Bypass most handholding measures and preliminary triage '
>          'routines.  This mode should not be used by people unfamiliar with '
>          'Debian\'s policies and operating procedures.'}
> ===
> 
>   I'm not exactly sure how to set the mode level... 
> 
> There appears to have been a Non-Maintainer-Upload of reportbug:
> ===
> Martin Loschwitz <madkiss@debian.org>  Fri, 14 Mar 2003 19:15:00 +0100
> ===
> 
>   It is possible that he might have changed the default mode...

jeez mike, i did some digging, and as always, you're right on the mark.
here's an explanation of what i found:


previously, i've always passed a package name to reportbug because
without one, it would print an error message, "you need to give a
package to report", and die.

so i was pretty shocked when i just now typed:

   $ reportbug

and it asked me which mode to use (novice, expert, etc).  that's new.
in fact, from the output, it says that the default mode is "novice".


however, when you invoke reportbug with a package (the way i've always
done it in the past):

   $ reportbug vim

which is the way i've always invoked it in the past, it doesn't ask you
for a mode.  presumably, "novice" is still the default.  and that's why
i wasn't asked for a patch or security related tag.  the default mode
has changed.

there's a command line switch --mode=MODE that allows you to change the
default.  however, this is better:

you can do:

   $ reportbug --configure

to change the default mode, your real name, your email address and
whether reportbug should use direct internet access.  nice.  i don't
remember that either, but then again, i didn't really look...

mystery solved.  mike, thanks for the tip!  :)

pete

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