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Using send-pr from within Emacs

You can use an interactive send-pr interface from within GNU Emacs to fill out your Problem Report. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with Emacs before using this feature (see “Introduction” in The GNU Emacs Manual).

Call send-pr with M-X send-pr. If typing M-X send-pr doesn’t work, see your system administrator for loading send-pr into Emacs.

send-pr responds with a Problem Report template pre-configured for the Support Site from which you received send-pr.

If you use send-pr locally, the default Support Site is probably your local site.

You may also submit problem reports to different Support Sites from the default site. To use this feature, invoke send-pr with C-U M-X send-pr.

send-pr prompts you for the name of a site. site is an alias on your local machine which points to an alternate Support Site.

send-pr displays the template and prompts you in the minibuffer with the following line.

    >Category: other

Delete the default value ‘other’ in the minibuffer and replace it with the keyword corresponding to your problem (the list of valid categories is in the topmost section of the PR template). For example, if the problem you wish to report has to do with the GNU C compiler, and your support organization accepts bugs submitted for this program under the category ‘gcc’, delete ‘other’ and then type gcc and use the RET key. send-pr replaces the following line.

    >Category: <name of the product (one line)>

The previous example’s onscreen report is replaced with the following example’s message, and send-pr moves on to another field.

    >Category: gcc

send-pr provides name completion in the minibuffer. For instance, you can also type gc and use the TAB key, and send-pr attempts to complete the entry for you. Typing g and using the TAB key may not have the same effect if several possible entries begin with ‘g’. In that case, send-pr cannot complete the entry because it cannot determine whether you mean ‘gcc’ or, for example, ‘gdb’, if both of those are possible categories. send-pr continues to prompt you for a valid entry until you enter one.

send-pr prompts you interactively to enter each field for which there is a range of specific choices. If you attempt to enter a value which is not in the range of acceptable entries, send-pr responds with ‘[No match]’ and allows you to change the entry until it contains an acceptable value. This avoids unusable information (at least in these fields) and also avoids typographical errors which could cause problems later.

send-pr prompts you for the following fields.

>Category:
>Confidential: (default: no)
>Severity: (default: serious)
>Priority: (default: medium)
>Class: (default: sw-bug)
>Release:
>Synopsis: (this value is copied to Subject:)

After you complete these fields, send-pr places the cursor in the ‘>Description:’ field and displays the following message in the minibuffer.

To send the problem report use: C-c C-c

At this point, edit the file in the main buffer to reflect your specific problem, putting relevant information in the proper fields. See An Example for a sample Problem Report. send-pr provides a few key bindings to make moving around in a template buffer more simple, as in the following buffer input.

CTRL-C, CTRL-F
META-X change-field

Changes the field under the cursor. edit-pr prompts you for a new value.

META-C, B
META-X, prms-backward-field

Moves the cursor to the beginning of the value of the current field.

META-C, F
META-X prms-forward-field

Moves the cursor to the end of the value of the current field.

META-P
META-X prms-previous-field

Moves the cursor back one field to the beginning of the value of the previous field.

META-N
META-X prms-next-field

Moves the cursor forward one field to the beginning of the value of the next field.

send-pr takes over again when you use the keystroke sequence, CTRL-C CTRL-C, to send the message. send-pr reports any errors in a separate buffer, which remains in existence until you send the PR properly (or, of course, until you explicitly kill the buffer). For detailed instructions on using Emacs, see “Introduction” in The GNU Emacs Manual.