[phpBT-dev] Bug reports via script

[Ulf E. <ulf...@fa...>]

Hoi,

The project TODO mentions both Create bugs via email and Conversion 
script from a bugzilla database. I think these two tasks can share a 
common back-end. Write different front-ends to receive data via 
procmail, SQL queries, or a user created CSV file, and have them all 
insert the data into phpBugTracker using the same back-end.

There is already a tool in the contrib directory that can insert GNATS 
reports into phpBugTracker, but unfortunately it is hardcoded to use 
MySQL only. Will it be rewritten in a database independent manner one 
day? and at the same time split in two: a gnats front-end and a phpbt 
back-end.

When accessing the database directly you will have to duplicate the 
logics to send out bug mails. At least, I would expect to receive a mail 
telling me the new state of a bug after it has been altered via e-mail.

The easiest way I know to access web-sites from the command line is by 
using cURL. There should be bindings to cURL-lib from languages such as 
python and perl. Attached is a small bash script to show how easy it is 
to report and comment on bugs this way.

What's needed is being able to accept all parameters on the command 
line, URL encoding of summary and comments, and so on, and so on.. Lots 
of parts are missing still to make it useful.

An observation is how you change most of the field names from one form 
to the other. It would be less troubles writing a script if the same 
name was used for the same field all the time..

I've got another question: When I post changes this way, not using the 
web-forms, do all restrictions still apply? What about safe-guarding 
against bad data? Some invalid values seem to make a bug invisible..

-- 
Ulf