Method to automatically merge e-mail replies

• US 7,546,352 B1
• Filed: 08/15/2008
• Issued: 06/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Naineni, Malahal R., Bhattiprolu, Sukadev, Seetharaman, Chandra S., Myneni, Haren, Sharoff, Narasimha N., Pulavarty, Badari
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; Quang N.
• Application Number:
  US12/192,343
• Time in Patent Office: 298 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/206, 709/218, 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads

Abstract

A method for automatically merging e-mail replies containing reviewer comments to open source software code is disclosed. Individual reply messages may be identified for merger and evaluated for comments for each line of code. Comments, context information, and reviewer information may then be extracted and incorporated into a merged reply message where each line of code commented on contains comments associated with that line of code. The merged reply message may then be transmitted back to the sender with the incorporated comments.

Claims

1. A method of automatically merging e-mail replies to a sender, comprising:

creating an original e-mail message including a software code for review;

embedding encoded portions of context information into the original e-mail message;

transmitting the original e-mail message with the software code for review to a predetermined group of software reviewers;

associating individual reviewer comments to the embedded encoded portions of context information;

incorporating the individual reviewer comments directed to code lines of the software code into individual reply messages;

identifying reply messages to merge into a single consolidated merged reply message;

stripping out user-defined indentations from the software code in individual reply messages added by the reviewers;

scanning the reply messages for the presence of encoded context information;

using the encoded context information if present to identify a specific code line of software code in the original e-mail message a reviewer comment is associated with;

applying a pattern matching technique to the reviewer comments and code lines of individual reply messages to associate one of the reviewer comments to a specific code line of software code in the original e-mail message;

attaching an indication of reviewer information along with the associated reviewer comments;

merging the associated reviewer comments into the single consolidated merged reply message;

grouping reviewer comments and indications of reviewer information common to a specific code line together;

grouping reviewer comments and indications of reviewer information common to a specific encoded portion of context information together;

placing the reviewer comments at the top or bottom of the merged reply message when pattern matching techniques fail to associate the reviewer comments with a specific code line;

collapsing sections of software code from view in the merged reply message that do not contain reviewer comments; and

transmitting the merged reply message back to the sender.