Package: wnpp Severity: wishlist * Package name : libdevel-bt-perl Version : 0.05 Upstream Author : Florian Ragwitz * URL or Web page : http://search.cpan.org/dist/Devel-bt/ * License : Perl Description : Automatic gdb backtraces on fatal errors
Maintaining a lot of CPAN distributions, many of which are written in C and XS, I regularly get reports of segfaults and similar fatal errors from users, both via mail and IRC. In order to work out where the problem actually is, I often have to ask for a gdb backtrace of the failure. However, walking users unfamiliar with gdb through its usage tedious, and I figured I'd automate it using the Devel::bt module, and it turned out to be helpful not just for me and users of my modules, but also to many other CPAN authors, especially those depending on a rather large stack of XS and non-XS modules. Devel::bt seems to help them a lot in figuring out where to forward the user's report to if it isn't an issue in their own codebase. There's an annoyance left tho. Instead of just giving people a simple command-line to get a backtrace from, many users still need to be told how to install Devel::bt and gdb, for that command-line to actually work. Very often those users also happen to use Debian or some of its derivatives. Therefore I think having Devel::bt packaged for Debian, and being able to point users at the packages would be a Good Thing and take a tiny bit of load off of all the busy CPAN authors trying to support their users and their segfaulting perls. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-wnpp-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bp80men3....@tardis.home.perldition.org
