Creating a minimal example

The best way to get help from someone is by handing the problem to them on a silver platter. They'll have no need to ask for further details and no need to guess, and the work won't be too boring. Describe the problem with a code example that meets these criteria:

  • It should be complete, so we can try to compile it
  • It should actually show the problem
  • It should be as small as possible

This usually makes the problem easy to solve. It's handy enough for posting in a forum and the readers can easily try it out.

How to do it...

A good strategy is "divide and conquer". This refers to a technique of solving a problem by splitting it recursively into smaller problems until just simple problems remain. In our case, we repeatedly divide ...

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