Oracle 5.0 Reference Manual page 36

and assume that some details do not matter. A good principle to follow is that if you are in doubt about
stating something, state it. It is faster and less troublesome to write a couple more lines in your report
than to wait longer for the answer if we must ask you to provide information that was missing from the
initial report.
The most common errors made in bug reports are (a) not including the version number of the MySQL
distribution that you use, and (b) not fully describing the platform on which the MySQL server is
installed (including the platform type and version number). These are highly relevant pieces of
information, and in 99 cases out of 100, the bug report is useless without them. Very often we get
questions like, "Why doesn't this work for me?" Then we find that the feature requested wasn't
implemented in that MySQL version, or that a bug described in a report has been fixed in newer
MySQL versions. Errors often are platform-dependent. In such cases, it is next to impossible for us to
fix anything without knowing the operating system and the version number of the platform.
If you compiled MySQL from source, remember also to provide information about your compiler if
it is related to the problem. Often people find bugs in compilers and think the problem is MySQL-
related. Most compilers are under development all the time and become better version by version. To
determine whether your problem depends on your compiler, we need to know what compiler you used.
Note that every compiling problem should be regarded as a bug and reported accordingly.
If a program produces an error message, it is very important to include the message in your report. If
we try to search for something from the archives, it is better that the error message reported exactly
matches the one that the program produces. (Even the lettercase should be observed.) It is best
to copy and paste the entire error message into your report. You should never try to reproduce the
message from memory.
If you have a problem with Connector/ODBC (MyODBC), please try to generate a trace file and send it
with your report. See Section 20.1.8.2, "How to Report Connector/ODBC Problems or
If your report includes long query output lines from test cases that you run with the
line tool, you can make the output more readable by using the
statement terminator. The
Please include the following information in your report:
• The version number of the MySQL distribution you are using (for example, MySQL 5.0.19). You can
find out which version you are running by executing
program can be found in the
• The manufacturer and model of the machine on which you experience the problem.
• The operating system name and version. If you work with Windows, you can usually get the name
and version number by double-clicking your My Computer icon and pulling down the "Help/About
Windows" menu. For most Unix-like operating systems, you can get this information by executing the
command
uname -a.
• Sometimes the amount of memory (real and virtual) is relevant. If in doubt, include these values.
• If you are using a source distribution of the MySQL software, include the name and version number
of the compiler that you used. If you have a binary distribution, include the distribution name.
• If the problem occurs during compilation, include the exact error messages and also a few lines of
context around the offending code in the file where the error occurs.
• If died, you should also report the statement that crashed mysqld. You can usually get this
mysqld
information by running
crashes. See MySQL Internals: Porting to Other
• If a database table is related to the problem, include the output from the
db_name.tbl_name
How to Report Bugs or Problems
example later in this section demonstrates the use of \G.
EXPLAIN SELECT
directory under your MySQL installation directory.
bin
with query logging enabled, and then looking in the log after
mysqld
statement in the bug report. This is a very easy way to get the definition of
16
--vertical
version. The
mysqladmin
Systems.
Bugs".
command-
mysql
[270] option or the
\G
mysqladmin
mysqld
SHOW CREATE TABLE