Debbugs pseudo-headers in comments

Debbugs pseudo-headers in comments

[Carlos Pita]

Hi all,

I tried to add a patch tag in a bug report comment pseudo-header but
it didn't seem to work at all (so I ended up using the control
interface as always). Thus I'm afraid X-Debbugs-CC pseudo-headers I
often include in my followups are not honored (and this I can't do
from the control interface, of course).

Could someone clarify the use of pseudo-headers in comments? I wasn't
able to find a precise statement about this in the debbugs
documentation.

Cheers
--
Carlos

Re: Debbugs pseudo-headers in comments

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> Carlos Pita <carlosjosepita@gmail.com> writes:

 > I tried to add a patch tag in a bug report comment pseudo-header but
 > it didn't seem to work at all (so I ended up using the control
 > interface as always).

	The Debbugs instance maintained by the Debian project allows
	‘Control: tags + patch’ to be used for that purpose.  But that
	seems to be somewhat recent a feature, not yet available from
	debbugs.gnu.org.

 > Thus I'm afraid X-Debbugs-CC pseudo-headers I often include in my
 > followups are not honored (and this I can't do from the control
 > interface, of course).

	The purpose of X-Debbugs-CC: is to send a copy of the initial
	report with the headers (To:, Subject:) set to reference the bug
	number [1].  Why do you want to use that header in follow-ups
	(where either To: or Cc: should already point to the bug you
	reply to, and thus there’s no need for any additional header
	mangling on the part of Debbugs)?

[1] https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting#xcc

 > Could someone clarify the use of pseudo-headers in comments?  I
 > wasn't able to find a precise statement about this in the debbugs
 > documentation.

	Apart of Control:, the only other pseudo-header I know to work
	for Debbugs is Version:, – when the bug is closed via -done@.

-- 
FSF associate member #7257  np. Back on Track — David Fredman  B6A0 230E 334A

Re: Debbugs pseudo-headers in comments

[Carlos Pita]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:29 AM, Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> wrote:

>         reply to, and thus there’s no need for any additional header
>         mangling on the part of Debbugs)?

I see, Ivan, thank you for the detailed explanation and also for the
links to further information.

Just another related question: when I send a bug report I get an
acknowledgement with a subject with the following format:

bug#NNNN: Acknowledgement (<bug description>)

The Reply-To header of this response is correctly set to the bug
address, but AFAICS in the mailing list most follow-ups don't include
the "Acknowledgement()" part in the subject header (although some of
them, including some of mine -shame on me-, do include it). So most of
the time they're not just mindless replies to the acknowledgement.
Some of them could be replies to follow-ups, fine. But sometimes the
bug reporter becomes its own commenter. So what do you do in these
cases:

1) Reply to the acknowledgement without modifying the subject.

2) Reply to the acknowledgement editing the subject to remove the
"Acknowledgement()" part.

3) Write a mail from scratch copy-pasting the bug description to the subject.

4) Another more sophisticated option I'm not aware of.

Cheers
--
Carlos

Re: Debbugs pseudo-headers in comments

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> Carlos Pita <carlosjosepita@gmail.com> writes:

[…]

 > Just another related question: when I send a bug report I get an
 > acknowledgement with a subject with the following format:

 > bug#NNNN: Acknowledgement (<bug description>)

 > The Reply-To header of this response is correctly set to the bug
 > address, but AFAICS in the mailing list most follow-ups don't include
 > the "Acknowledgement()" part in the subject header (although some of
 > them, including some of mine -shame on me-, do include it).  So most
 > of the time they're not just mindless replies to the acknowledgement.
 > Some of them could be replies to follow-ups, fine.  But sometimes the
 > bug reporter becomes its own commenter.  So what do you do in these
 > cases:

 > 1) Reply to the acknowledgement without modifying the subject.

 > 2) Reply to the acknowledgement editing the subject to remove the
 > "Acknowledgement ()" part.

 > 3) Write a mail from scratch copy-pasting the bug description to the
 > subject.

 > 4) Another more sophisticated option I'm not aware of.

	The problem with 1‒3 is that these tear the respective
	discussion thread.  To avoid that, – try to get the initial
	message – /as modified by Debbugs,/ – and reply to that.

	I know of several means to do that:

	• subscribe to the bug-gnu-emacs@ mailing list; you will get all
	  the Debbugs mail (sans pure-control@ messages), /including/
	  your own bug reports;

	• go to http://debbugs.gnu.org/⟨bug-number⟩ and fetch the
	  initial message (or all the messages associated with that
	  report) in Unix mbox format; per my experience, mail user
	  agents typically allow browsing mbox files as mail folders,
	  /and/ replying to messages stored within them;

	• subscribe to nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.bugs (the NNTP
	  mirror of the bug-gnu-emacs@ mailing list) and find the
	  message of interest there; you’ll probably still want to reply
	  via email (/not/ NNTP); for Gnus, M-x gnus-summary-wide-reply
	  will do just that.

	Alternatively, since Debbugs uses Resent-Message-Id:, it’s
	possible to just reply to the original message itself (assuming
	you save a copy of outgoing mail) – /but be sure/ to fix the To:
	header to point to the correct ⟨bug-number⟩@ email.

-- 
FSF associate member #7257  http://boycottsystemd.org/  … 3013 B6A0 230E 334A