RFP: libdevel-bt-perl -- Automatic gdb backtraces on fatal errors
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.
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