--- name: "edit-pr" section: "8" platform: "linux" package: "gnats-user" version: "3.999.beta1+cvs20020303-2" release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/gnats/7" --- # edit-pr(8) Problem Report Management System Part of [gnats(7)](/gnats/7.md). ## NAME gnats - Problem Report Management System ## DESCRIPTION **GNATS** is a bug-tracking tool designed for use at a central support site. Software users who experience problems use electronic mail to communicate these problems to the the maintainers of that software; **GNATS** partially automates the tracking of these problems by: - **•** organizing problem reports into a database and notifying responsible parties of suspected bugs; - **•** allowing support personnel and their managers to edit, query and report on accumulated bugs; and - **•** providing a reliable archive of problems with a given program and a history of the life of the program by preserving its reported problems and their subsequent solutions. **GNATS** offers many of the same features offered by more generic databases. You can query and edit existing problem reports (*PR*s) as well as obtain reports on groups of PRs. The database itself is simply an ordered repository for problem reports; each PR receives a unique, incremental *PR*number*,* which identifies it throughout its lifetime. Many of the primary functions available with **GNATS** are accessible from within GNU **Emacs**. ## PROBLEM REPORT STATES PRs go through several states in their lifetimes. The set of states is site-specific. The default set of states are: - *open* the initial state of every PR; this means the PR has been filed and the person or group responsible for it has been notified of the suspected problem - *analyzed* the problem has been examined and work toward a solution has begun - *feedback* a solution has been found and tested at the support site, and sent to the party who reported the problem; that party is testing the solution - *closed* the solution has been confirmed by the party which reported it In some cases, it may be necessary to suspend work on a bug; in this case, its state changes to *suspended* rather than *closed*. ## STRUCTURE Incoming PRs are assigned an incremental serial number and filed according to category. An index is kept concurrently to accelerate searches of the database. All **GNATS** administration and database files are located in subdirectories of a directory associated with each database. Databases are named, and the association between database names and directories is described by the **databases** file, which is found on this system in **@PREFIX@/share/gnats/databases.** *Problem Reports* are segregated into subdirectories within the database directory by category. For example, problems submitted with a category of *gcc* will be filed in the database subdirectory **gcc**. **GNATS** administration files are kept in the database subdirectory **gnats-adm**: - **dbconfig** describes the structure of the database, and various database-specific options - **categories** table of valid categories and parties responsible for them - **responsible** table of responsible parties and their email addresses - **submitters** database of sites which submit PRs - **current** keeps track of incremental PR numbers assigned - **index** database index Administrative programs and programs internal to **GNATS** are kept in the directory **@PREFIX@/libexec/gnats** while those meant for public use are installed in **@PREFIX@/bin**. **@PREFIX@/libexec/gnats** contains the programs: - **mkdb** used by the **GNATS** administrator to create a new database - **mkcat** used by the **GNATS** administrator to create new categories \[obsolete\] - **rmcat** used by the **GNATS** administrator to remove outdated categories \[obsolete\] - **gen-index** used by the **GNATS** administrator to generate a new version of the index - **queue-pr** mail control program which accepts incoming messages and periodically submits them to the database via **cron** by feeding them through the program [**file-pr**(8)](/file-pr/8.md) - **pr-edit** program which is mainly responsible for editing existing PRs and filing new ones; it is used by **edit-pr** and **file-pr** - **file-pr** script which uses **pr-edit** to file new PRs - **at-pr** automatically notifies responsible parties if a PR is not analyzed within a requisite period defined in the **submitters** file - **delete-pr** used to delete closed PRs **@PREFIX@/bin** contains the programs - **query-pr** used to query the database - **edit-pr** used to edit individual PRs - **send-pr** used to submit problems to **GNATS** Documentation exists for all programs associated with **GNATS.** ## SEE ALSO *Keeping Track: Managing Messages With GNATS* (also installed as the GNU Info file **gnats.info**) and *Reporting Problems Using send-pr* (also installed as the GNU Info file **send-pr.info**). [**gnats**(7)](/gnats/7.md), [**send-pr**(1)](/send-pr/1.md), [**edit-pr**(1)](/edit-pr/1.md), [**query-pr**(1)](/query-pr/1.md), [**file-pr**(8)](/file-pr/8.md), [**queue-pr**(8)](/queue-pr/8.md), [**delete-pr**(8)](/delete-pr/8.md), [**mkcat**(8)](/mkcat/8.md), [**mkdb**(8)](/mkdb/8.md), [**rmcat**(8)](/rmcat/8.md), [**gen-index**(8)](/gen-index/8.md), [**pr-edit**(8)](/pr-edit/8.md) ## HISTORY **GNATS** was greatly inspired by the BSD [**sendbug**(1)](/sendbug/1.md) and **bugfiler**(8) programs. It was originally written in C++, Elisp, shell script, and awk. It presently consists of utilities written in C, shell script, and Elisp. ## AUTHORS **GNATS** was originally written by Heinz G. Seidl (Cygnus Support). Subsequent iterations were developed by Brendan Kehoe (Cygnus Support) and Jason Merrill (Cygnus Support), with help from Tim Wicinski. Documentation was initially developed by Jeffrey Osier (Cygnus Support) and Brendan Kehoe (Cygnus Support). Version 4.x was a substantial rewrite done by Bob Manson (Juniper Networks). ## COPYING Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.