RootTalk Rules

The RootTalk mailing list and forum can be used to pass information of general interest to the ROOT user community or to submit problems that you cannot solve with the information provided in the User's Guide or Reference Guide. Several thousands users read the list and forum. When you send a mail to RootTalk, please obey the following simple rules:

1. If you submit a problem, always indicate your ROOT version number and the type of machine.
2. The message subject line must clearly identify the problem. Items with no subject line will be automatically discarded. In particular, do not reply to an existing post if your problem has nothing to do with the original.
3. If you use a version of ROOT older than the current PRO release, make an effort to test your problem with a more recent version. If this is too difficult, consult the release and development notes to check if your problem has not already been solved.
4. Use the search engine with some keywords identifying your problem to check if an answer has not already been given to a similar question or problem.
5. Never submit a mail of the style:

   my program crashes with:
   Segmentation violation...

   Always report the maximum possible information when the crash happens. Run under gdb:

   gdb  root.exe
   gdb> run
   root> .x something that crashes
   gdb> bt

   and send the result of the bt command. If you have the ROOT source, compile the classes referenced in the traceback and run again. Use gdb to report as much information as possible: line numbers, values of variables, etc.
6. Send a script (as short as possible) reproducing the problem. Make sure that your script can be executed directly. If it uses a data file, send the smallest possible data file as a mail attachment, or indicate how to get this file. The mailer will refuse files exceeding a few hundred kilobytes. As a general rule, do not send files in attachement exceeding 200 Kbytes.
7. If you have to send many classes to reproduce a problem, do not send many files as mail attachments, but rather make a issue.tar.gz file with all the necessary files and a Makefile to build your shared library or executable.
8. If you submit a problem without a script, make sure that your explanations are sufficient to minimize the number of iterations with the ROOT development team.
9. If you have submitted a problem and do not get an answer in the next 24 hours, check the above rules and submit your problem again.