Identifying code that exhibits ideal logging behavior

• US 9,292,281 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2014
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Balachandran, Vipin
• Primary Examiner(s): TECKLU, ISAAC TUKU
• Application Number:
  US14/458,303
• Publication Number:
  US 20150378724A1
• Time in Patent Office: 587 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3452 Performance evaluation by statistical analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/75 Structural analysis for program understanding

Abstract

Techniques are described for identifying the ideal or preferred logging behavior to be followed in a software development project. A numerical weight is computed for each method in the source code that can be used to rank the logging behavior of that method. The numerical weight is computed in such a way that the methods whose log printing statements have been modified more frequently receive higher numerical weights. The assumption is that since most logging enhancements are done as after thoughts during code reviews or while fixing bugs, the ideal logging behavior will be exhibited by those methods whose logging behavior was modified the most frequently. Once the methods have been ranked according to the numerical weight, the highest ranking methods can be used to provide insight to developers about the ideal logging behavior for the project.

Claims

1. A method for identifying methods which exhibit ideal logging behavior in source code, said method comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

processing the source code of a computer program to identify a plurality of methods that contain one or more log printing statements;

processing a commit history of the source code to identify a frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements for each of the plurality of methods;

storing each of the plurality of methods into a static call graph in memory of the one or more computing systems, wherein each node of the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes in the static call graph represents a function call;

assigning, to each node of the static call graph a numerical weight to indicate a log rank of the method resented by the node, the numerical weight computed based at least in part on the frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements; and

ranking the nodes of the static call graph according to the numerical weight indicating the log rank; and

displaying the method represented by the node having the highest numerical weight on a display device, wherein processing the commit history further comprises restricting the frequency of modifications used to compute the numerical weight to only changes that include verbosity level changes, and addition and deletion of log printing statements.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the numerical weight is based on the frequency of modifications and bug priority data associated with one or more modifications committed to the source code.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements include at least one of:

a verbosity level change, an addition of a log printing statement, or a deletion of a log printing statement.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the verbosity level includes at least one of:

TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR and FATAL.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a highest ranking method based on ranking the methods according to the numerical weight; and

displaying the highest ranking method with an indication that the highest ranking method exhibits an ideal logging behavior for the source code of the computer program.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the numerical weight is computed such that an increase in the frequency of modifications to the one or more log printing statements of a method causes an increase in the numerical weight for said method.

7. A computing device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory including instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing device to;

process the source code of a computer program to identify a plurality of methods that contain one or more log printing statements;

process a commit history of the source code to identify a frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements for each of the plurality of methods;

store each of the plurality of methods into a static call graph in the memory, wherein each node of the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes in the static call graph represents a function call;

assign, to each node of the static call graph a numerical weight to indicate a log rank of the method represented by the node, the numerical weight computed based at least in part on a frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements; and

rank the nodes of the static call graph according to the numerical weight indicating the log rank; and

display the method represented by the node having the highest numerical weight on a display device, wherein processing the commit history further comprises restricting the frequency of modifications used to compute the numerical weight to only changes that include verbosity level changes, and addition and deletion of log printing statements.

8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the numerical weight is based on the frequency of modifications and bug priority data associated with one or more modifications committed to the source code.

9. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements include at least one of:

a verbosity level change, an addition of a log printing statement, or a deletion of a log printing statement.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the verbosity level includes at least one of:

TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR and FATAL.

11. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing device to:

determine a highest ranking method based on ranking the methods according to the numerical weight; and

display the highest ranking method with an indication that the highest ranking method exhibits an ideal logging behavior for the source code of the computer program.

12. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the numerical weight is computed such that an increase in the frequency of modifications to the one or more log printing statements of a method causes an increase in the numerical weight for said method.

13. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising one or more sequences of instructions, the instructions when executed by one or more processors causing the one or more processors to execute the operations of:

processing the source code of a computer program to identify a plurality of methods that contain one or more log printing statements;

processing a commit history of the source code to identify a frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements for each of the plurality of methods;

storing each of the plurality of methods into a static call graph in the non-transitory computer readable storage medium, wherein each node of the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes in the static call graph represents a function call;

assigning, to each node of the static call graph a numerical weight to indicate a log rank of the method represented by the node, the numerical weight computed based at least in part on a frequency of modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements; and

ranking the nodes of the static call graph according to the numerical weight indicating the log rank; and

displaying the method represented by the node having the highest numerical weight on a display device, wherein processing the commit history further comprises restricting the frequency of modifications used to compute the numerical weight to only changes that include verbosity level changes, and addition and deletion of log printing statements.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the numerical weight is based on the frequency of modifications and bug priority data associated with one or more modifications committed to the source code.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the modifications performed on the one or more log printing statements include at least one of:

a verbosity level change, an addition of a log printing statement, or a deletion of a log printing statement.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the verbosity level includes at least one of:

TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR and FATAL.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions to execute the operations of:

determining a highest ranking method based on ranking the methods according to the numerical weight; and

displaying the highest ranking method with an indication that the highest ranking method exhibits an ideal logging behavior for the source code of the computer program.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the numerical weight is computed such that an increase in the frequency of modifications to the one or more log printing statements of a method causes an increase in the numerical weight for said method.