Submitting a bug report

Most of the traffic on the Castor Users mailing list is about people asking for help on various features of Castor (whether JDO or XML). Whilst there is nothing wrong about asking questions and looking for help if you are stuck, it seems that there is room to improve the structure of this 'conversation'.

If you have a look at some of these threads (e.g. at the searchable mailing list archive), it's quite easy to see that most of the time ...

1. An initial question is posted.

2. An initial reply is posted with some follow-up questions, e.g. request for code fragments, mapping files, etc.

3. One or more code fragments, mapping files, etc. are being posted.

4. etc.

This document will establish guidelines with regards to step 3) above.

This document provides step-by-step instructions on how to submit a problem report (when being asked to do so). It does so by walking you through a fictive problem and its resulting bug report, and providing instructions based upon this scenario.

Per definition, any problem report submitted (in other words, most likely attached to a bug report at http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/CASTOR) by the means of a patch should include one of the following artefacts:

Note: Whilst we can and will not impose these guidelines in their strictest sense, I think that the use of the aforementioned artefacts will simplify problem resolution and as a result lead to shorter turn-around times. Which is ultimately where you, the user, gains.

To facilitate creation of a fully featured patch as discussed above, we have provided you with an already existing bug template at 'src/bugs/xml/template'.

Note:Please note that this directory is distributed only as part of the source archive(s).

This directory holds some of the artefacts mentioned above, and is structured as follows:

To create you own bug report, please copy 'template' to e.g. bug1368, assuming that 1368 is the number assigned to your Jira issue). Subsequently, please amend the files provided to match your own requirements. After you have consolidated your changes, the original directory structure in src/bugs could look as follows:

To facilitate creation of a fully featured but report/patch for the XML code generator, we have provided you with an already existing bug template at 'codegen/src/test/java' and 'codegen/src/test/resources'.

Note:Please note that these directories are distributed only as part of the source archive(s).

These directory holds some of the artefacts mentioned above, and is structured as follows (all paths shown relative to codegen/src/test):

To create you own bug report, please copy 'xml.srcgen.template' in both locations to e.g. xml.bug1368, assuming that 1368 is the number assigned to your Jira issue). Subsequently, please amend the files provided to match your own requirements. After you have consolidated your changes, the original directory structure in codegen/src/test could look as follows:

As a last step, we ask you submit your code changes in the form of a unified patch by attaching it to the relevant Jira issue. Please simply follow the instructions provided here.

Whilst we cannot assume that every Castor (XML) user is an expert in the use of JUnit, we do believe that they are quite easy to get acquainted with. As a starting point, please find below some references: