False positive in test for libdbi bug

[John Ralls]

On Sep 11, 2011, at 8:45 PM, John W. O'Brien wrote:

> 
> The silver bullet would have been to avoid the problem in the first
> place. To do that, conn_test_dbi_library() needs a way to signal its
> caller that the test could not be completed, not just "yes, the bug is
> present" or "no, the bug is not present". Would that be a worthwhile
> thread to pull on over on -devel?
> 
> As for aiding my diagnosis, and aside from correcting my own missteps
> when I was in the thick of troubleshooting, the things that might have
> helped are:
> 
> 1. The help manual is unusually silent on topics concerning the nuts and
> bolts of troubleshooting GNC. Perhaps a high-level overview of the
> user-visible diagnostic interfaces would be appropriate, at least to
> give an idea of the kinds of things to seek in the wiki. Evidently most
> of the documentation effort is directed toward accounting concepts (much
> appreciated), and the application thereof using GNC (very appropriate),
> while the wiki remains the everything-else bucket.
> 
> 2. For the error message, it would have been brilliant to have a "show
> me the applicable trace" button. Then without knowing squat, or having
> to do hard things like read help and search the wiki, I could quickly
> review some relevant internals. I could be persuaded to elaborate on
> this idea, if others find it interesting.
> 
> 3. I probably should have started probing the wiki sooner, but the
> general challenge (which I tried to address in 1.) was not knowing what
> I was looking for. Now I know there is good stuff in /tmp/gnucash.trace,
> and that it is associated with a facility GNC thinks of as "logging,"
> but has nothing special to do with the "log" files that show up when I
> use the standard XML backend. There is a ton of content in the wiki, but
> it admits mine-ability better than it does navigability.


A bug report would be better than a thread in the dev list.

I also like the idea of adding some gui elements to the logging functions, but I don't know when anyone will have time to work on it. The same goes for a Troubleshooting chapter in the user manual. And navigability is always a problem with wikis; Google is your friend there.

Regards,
John Ralls