If you find a bug in cairo we would love to hear about it. We're also
trying to make cairo better, and learning about the bugs that users
encounter is an essential part of that. So we really appreciate the
extra effort users put in to providing high-quality bug reports.
There are two acceptable ways to report cairo bugs, and you can choose
which you prefer:
1) Bugzilla bug tracking database:
You can use the following web interface to report new bugs, follow
up on previous bug reports, and search for existing, known
bugs. Just use the "cairo" product:
http://bugs.freedesktop.org
It is necessary to go through a quick account creation process,
(with email address verification), in order to be able to report
new bugs in bugzilla. We apologize for any inconvenience that might
cause, and hope it won't prevent you from reporting bugs.
2) Cairo mailing list:
For people who cannot stand the bugzilla interface, you can just
send an email to cairo mailing list (cairo@cairographics.org). The
mailing list only allows posting from subscribers, so use the
following page for subscription instructions:
http://cairographics.org/lists
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this subscription step
might cause, but we've found it necessary to require this in order
to enjoy spam-free discussions on the list.
If you don't actually _want_ to be a subscriber to the mailing
list, but just want to be able to send a message, the easiest thing
to do is to go through the subscription process, and then use the
preferences page to disable message delivery to your address.
Which of the above you use to report bugs depends on your own
preferences. Some people find just typing an email message much easier
than using the web-based forms on bugzilla. Others greatly prefer the
ability to check back on a specific bug entry in bugzilla without
having to ask on the mailing list if an issue has been resolved.
Regardless of which method you use, here are some general tips that
will help you improve the quality of your bug report, (which will help
in getting the bug fixed sooner):
1) Check to see if the bug has been reported already. It's pretty easy
to run a search or two against the cairo product in the
http://bugs.freedesktop.org bugzilla database. Another place to
look for known bugs is the cairo ROADMAP:
http://cairographics.org/ROADMAP
which shows a planned schedule of releases and which bug fixes are
being planned for each release.
2) Provide an accurate description of the bug with detailed steps for
how we can reproduce the problem.
3) If possible provide a minimal test case demonstrating the bug. A
great test case would be a minimal self-contained function in C or
python or whatever language you are using for cairo. The function
might accept nothing more than a cairo context, (cairo_t* in C).
4) If you feel like being particularly helpful, you could craft this
minimal test case in the form necessary for cairo's test
suite. This isn't much more work than writing a minimal
function. Just look at the cairo/test/README file and imitate the
style of existing test cases.
If you do submit a test case, be sure to include Copyright
information, (with the standard MIT licensing blurb if you want us
to include your test in the test case). Also, including a reference
image showing the expected result will be extremely useful.
5) Finally, the best bug report also comes attached with a patch to
cairo to fix the bug. So send this too if you have it! Otherwise,
don't worry about it and we'll try to fix cairo when we can.
Thanks, and have fun with cairo!
-Carl