Defect De-Duplication Rules for Duplicate Bug Report Filtering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Software systems often have duplicate software defects reported by multiple users in different manners, leading to waste of computing and developer resources due to repeated analysis and fixing efforts.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows users to submit information describing defects and specifies de-duplication rules using regular expressions to identify and mark duplicates, with a scoring mechanism to rank and reward effective rules, thereby reducing duplicate defects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple users report the same defect in different manners, then more users can participate in defect reporting, but the repository includes multiple representations of the same defect causing waste of computing and developer resources
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary de-duplication action by automatically comparing incoming defect reports against existing defects in the repository before they are added. This preliminary action identifies duplicate defects and prevents them from entering the development workflow, thereby maintaining developer efficiency while still allowing multiple users to report defects through the system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary de-duplication mechanism that acts as a mediator between user defect reports and the development workflow. This intermediary layer automatically filters out duplicate reports using comparison algorithms, allowing multiple users to participate in reporting while preventing duplicate defects from consuming developer resources.
2Loss of information
If the system stores all defect reports, then complete information is preserved, but storage resources and computing resources are wasted on duplicate defects
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes duplicate defect information from the repository before it is stored. By identifying duplicates through comparison algorithms and excluding them from storage, the system maintains completeness of unique defect information while significantly reducing storage resource consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary de-duplication action by comparing incoming defect reports against existing defects before storage. This preliminary action filters out duplicates at the point of intake, ensuring that only unique defect information is stored, thereby maintaining information completeness while optimizing storage resources.
3Reliability
If developers review all defects in the repository, then all potential issues are addressed, but developer resources are wasted on duplicate defects
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary de-duplication action by automatically identifying and filtering out duplicate defect reports before they reach developers. This preliminary action ensures that developers only review unique defects, maintaining complete defect detection while eliminating time wasted on duplicate defects.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary de-duplication layer that acts as a filter between the defect reporting system and developer review process. This intermediary automatically identifies and removes duplicate defects, ensuring developers review only unique issues, thereby maintaining reliability of defect detection while reducing developer time expenditure.
4Reliability
If the system attempts to fix all reported defects, then all reported issues are resolved, but computing resources are wasted on duplicate defect fixes
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary de-duplication action by identifying duplicate defects before they enter the fix workflow. This preliminary action ensures that only unique defects are assigned for fixing, maintaining complete resolution of reported issues while preventing computing resource waste on duplicate defect fixes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary de-duplication mechanism that acts as a filter between defect reporting and the fixing process. This intermediary automatically identifies and removes duplicate defects from the fix queue, ensuring complete resolution of unique defects while eliminating computing resource consumption on duplicate fixes.
Data Source
AI summary
A system allows users to submit information describing system defects, for example, defects in software systems. The system stores information describing defects for multiple external systems. The system further allows users to specify de-duplication rules for determining duplicate defects submitted by users. A de-duplication rule is associated with an original system defect and specifies regular expressions that are evaluated against a target system defect. The evaluation of the regular expressions against the target system defect indicates whether the target system defect is a duplicate of the original system defect. If the target system defect is determined to be a duplicate of another existing system defect, the target system defect may be closed.