Using Bugzilla

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Using Bugzilla

• Jamie Nicolson

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What is Bugzilla?

• Web-based bug database
• What is a bug?
• technically, a software defect
• bugzilla can also track enhancements, todo items,
  etc.
• A bug database records and organizes information
  about software development
• It's also a communication tool

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Why use a bug database?

• Keeps track of what you need to do
• Memories are faulty, and emails get lost in your
  inbox.
• Remembers issues long after they've been fixed
• Comments in the bug report record all the
  reasoning, experimentation, and discussion that
  went into fixing a bug
• Better organized than email discussions
• Bugs can be searched by keyword, package, dates,
  names of the people involved
• Accessible to all current and future JavaNLP
  developers

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Why use a bug database?

• Work process don't need to interrupt what you're
  doing as soon as a problem comes up

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What sorts of things can get filed as bugs?

• Broken code a traditional bug
• feature requests
• redesign/rearchitecting requests
• JavaNLP todo items
• your own personal todo items (for things you
  don't mind other people seeing)

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Searching for Bugs

• Can query on
• keyword search on bug summary and comments
• bug properties product, component, status,
  resolution, etc.
• usernames (email addresses) of involved parties
• date ranges
• Save frequently-used searches
• default saved search My Bugs all open bugs
  that I reported or that are assigned to me

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Creating a new bug

• First choose product (if anyone has ideas for
  other products...file a bug for it under the
  Bugzilla product!)
• Necessary fields
• Component
• Assign To gets filled in automatically with
  default assignee for the component
• Summary pithy, one-line description
• Description complete bug description. All
  technical details needed to reproduce the bug.

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Creating a new bug

• Other fields
• cc anyone else that should know about this bug
• priority how important is this bug?
• severity how severe is the impact of this bug?
• platform/OS rarely relevant for JavaNLP
• keyword
• like labels in gmail, allows creation of
  arbitrary sets of bugs
• keywords must be created manually through Edit
  Keywords link in the footer menu
• depends on/blocks allows dependencies to be
  recorded between bugs

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Modifying bugs

• Most bug fields can be modified after creation
• Descriptions of many bug fields can be reached by
  clicking on the field name in the bug report
• Most changes should be accompanied by a comment
  that explains why the change was made
• Sometimes the only change you want to make is to
  add a new comment, e.g., to give your input on a
  bug discussion

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Modifying bugs adding attachments

• Arbitrary files can be attached to each bug
• For example, an input file that provokes an
  erroneous output
• Keep the size reasonable don't attach a
  serialized classifier
• Special attachment type proposed patches
• generate these with cvs diff -u ... patch.txt
• select patch as the content type
• bugzilla can give a pretty diff display

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Modifying Bugs Bug Lifecycle

• Newly-created bugs start in the NEW status
• You may Accept your bug to move it to the
  ASSIGNED statusnot really necessary
• You can reassign your bug to someone else
• You can resolve your bugstatus becomes RESOLVED
• You can reopen a bug that wasn't fixed right
  REOPENED

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Modifying Bugs Resolving a bug

• You can resolve a bug without fixing it
• INVALID this isn't really a bug (user error)
• WONTFIX it's a bug but we're not going to fix it
• WORKSFORME similar to INVALID. This might be a
  bug, but I couldn't reproduce it. Onus on the
  reporter to make a reproducible test case.
• Mark bug as a DUPLICATE of some other bug
• LATER and REMIND are somewhat dangerous. They
  usually mean forget.
• If you actually fixed the bug, resolve it as FIXED

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Modifying Bugs Commit!

• Clicking the Commit button commits all the
  changes to the database
• Sends email notices to involved parties
• By default, email is sent to the reporter,
  assignee, and everyone on the CC list, except the
  user who made the modification
• But, you can change your email preferences

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Bugzilla and CVS

• Cross-reference bugs with cvs log entries
• In the bug What changes were made to the source
  code to fix this bug?
• In the CVS log Why was this change made?
• Reference bug number (and summary) in the CVS log
• Paste the CVS revision list into the bug comments

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