Enhancements to logging of a computer program

• US 9,552,274 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2014
• Issued: 01/24/2017
• 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): Mehrmanesh, Elmira
• Application Number:
  US14/458,279
• Publication Number:
  US 20150378863A1
• Time in Patent Office: 895 Days
• Field of Search: 714/38.1, 714/48
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/36 Preventing errors by testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/40 Data acquisition and logging for input to computer G06F3/00

Abstract

Techniques are described for providing recommendations to enhance the logging code in a computer program. In particular, the methods described herein can identify source code locations which lack log printing statements or contain noisy log printing statements. The methods analyze static call graph of the source code, the corresponding commit and bug history, and propose recommendations to enhance logging. The logging behavior in methods whose log printing statements have been significantly modified can be considered to be ideal. The analysis discovers such methods and quantifies their logging behavior. It then compares this logging behavior with the logging behavior of highly critical and/or less critical methods to generate logging enhancement recommendations.

Claims

1. A method for enhancing logging code in a computer program, said method comprising:

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

ranking a plurality of methods in the source code of a computer program based on a relative importance value computed for each method;

identifying a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program, the method identified based at least in part on historical logging code modifications of the method;

computing a logging behavior value for each of the plurality of methods;

comparing the logging behavior value of a method having a highest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior; and

generating a recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of the method having the highest relative importance value and the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior; and

generating a second recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the recommendation for enhancing the logging code further comprises:

displaying an indication of one or more of;

a deficiency of log printing statements, an excess of log printing statements, or an uneven verbosity level distribution.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the plurality of methods further comprises:

storing the plurality of methods in a static call graph, wherein each node in the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes represents a function call between methods.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the relative importance value of a method is computed based at least in part on a number of edges between a node representing the method and other nodes in the static call graph.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program further comprises:

assigning a weight to each of the plurality of methods based on the historical logging modifications and based on bug priority data; and

ranking the plurality of methods according to the weight of each method, wherein a top ranking method is the identified method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising quantifying the logging behavior based at least in part on one or more of:

a number of non-error log statements per executable lines of code in the method;

a number of error or fatal level log statements per error condition in the method; and

a verbosity level ratio of the method.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior with the logging behavior values of a subset of the plurality of methods, each method in the subset having a relative importance value that is higher than a predetermined threshold; and

generating a recommendation for enhancing the logging code for each of the subset of methods.

9. A computing system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

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

rank a plurality of methods in the source code of a computer program based on a relative importance value computed for each method;

identify a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program, the method identified based at least in part on historical logging code modifications of the method;

compute a logging behavior value for each of the plurality of methods;

compare the logging behavior value of a method having a highest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior; and

generate a recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of the method having the highest relative importance value and the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.

10. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the memory further includes instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to:

compare the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior; and

generate a second recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior.

11. The computing system of claim 9, wherein generating the recommendation for enhancing the logging code further comprises:

displaying an indication of one or more of;

a deficiency of log printing statements, an excess of log printing statements, or an uneven verbosity level distribution.

12. The computing system of claim 9, wherein ranking the plurality of methods further comprises:

storing the plurality of methods in a static call graph, wherein each node in the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes represents a function call between methods.

13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the relative importance value of a method is computed based at least in part on a number of edges between a node representing the method and other nodes in the static call graph.

14. The computing system of claim 9, wherein identifying a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program further comprises:

assigning a weight to each of the plurality of methods based on the historical logging modifications and based on bug priority data; and

ranking the plurality of methods according to the weight of each method, wherein a top ranking method is the identified method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.

15. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the memory further includes instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to:

compare the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior with the logging behavior values of a subset of the plurality of methods, each method in the subset having a relative importance value that is higher than a predetermined threshold; and

generate a recommendation for enhancing the logging code for each of the subset of methods.

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

ranking a plurality of methods in the source code of a computer program based on a relative importance value computed for each method;

identifying a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program, the method identified based at least in part on historical logging code modifications of the method;

computing a logging behavior value for each of the plurality of methods;

comparing the logging behavior value of a method having a highest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior; and

generating a recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of the method having the highest relative importance value and the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, further containing instructions when executed by one or more processors causing the one or more processors to execute the operations of:

comparing the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior; and

generating a second recommendation for enhancing the logging code based at least in part on comparing the logging behavior value of a method having the lowest relative importance value with the logging behavior value of the method that exhibits the ideal logging behavior.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein generating the recommendation for enhancing the logging code further comprises:

displaying an indication of one or more of;

a deficiency of log printing statements, an excess of log printing statements, or an uneven verbosity level distribution.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein ranking the plurality of methods further comprises:

storing the plurality of methods in a static call graph, wherein each node in the static call graph represents a method and each edge between nodes represents a function call between methods.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the relative importance value of a method is computed based at least in part on a number of edges between a node representing the method and other nodes in the static call graph.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein identifying a method that exhibits ideal logging behavior for the computer program further comprises:

assigning a weight to each of the plurality of methods based on the historical logging modifications and based on bug priority data; and

ranking the plurality of methods according to the weight of each method, wherein a top ranking method is the identified method that exhibits ideal logging behavior.