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17<title>LD: Bug Criteria</title>
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64<a name="Bug-Criteria"></a>
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66<p>
67Next: <a href="Bug-Reporting.html#Bug-Reporting" accesskey="n" rel="next">Bug Reporting</a>, Up: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" accesskey="u" rel="up">Reporting Bugs</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="LD-Index.html#LD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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70<a name="Have-You-Found-a-Bug_003f"></a>
71<h3 class="section">7.1 Have You Found a Bug?</h3>
72<a name="index-bug-criteria"></a>
73
74<p>If you are not sure whether you have found a bug, here are some guidelines:
75</p>
76<ul>
77<li> <a name="index-fatal-signal"></a>
78<a name="index-linker-crash"></a>
79<a name="index-crash-of-linker"></a>
80If the linker gets a fatal signal, for any input whatever, that is a
81<code>ld</code> bug.  Reliable linkers never crash.
82
83</li><li> <a name="index-error-on-valid-input"></a>
84If <code>ld</code> produces an error message for valid input, that is a bug.
85
86</li><li> <a name="index-invalid-input"></a>
87If <code>ld</code> does not produce an error message for invalid input, that
88may be a bug.  In the general case, the linker can not verify that
89object files are correct.
90
91</li><li> If you are an experienced user of linkers, your suggestions for
92improvement of <code>ld</code> are welcome in any case.
93</li></ul>
94
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