What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change

Gema Rodriguez Perez; Andy Zaidman; A. Serebrenik; Gregorio Robles; Jesús M. González-Barahona

doi:10.1145/3239235.3267436

What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change

Gema Rodriguez Perez, Andy Zaidman, A. Serebrenik, Gregorio Robles, Jesús M. González-Barahona

Software Engineering and Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Many studies in the software research literature on bug fixing are built upon the assumption that "a given bug was introduced by the lines of code that were modified to fix it", or variations of it. Although this assumption seems very reasonable at first glance, there is little empirical evidence supporting it. A careful examination surfaces that there are other possible sources for the introduction of bugs such as modifications to those lines that happened before the last change an changes external to the piece of code being fixed. Goal: We aim at understanding the complex phenomenon of bug introduction and bug fix. Method: We design a preliminary approach distinguishing between bug introducing commits (BIC) and first failing moments (FFM). We apply this approach to Nova and ElasticSearch, two large and well-known open source software projects. Results: In our initial results we obtain that at least 24% bug fixes in Nova and 10% in ElasticSearch have not been caused by a BIC but by co-evolution, compatibility issues or bugs in external API. Merely 26--29% of BICs can be found using the algorithm based on the assumption that "a given bug was introduced by the lines of code that were modified to fix it". Conclusions: The approach allows also for a better framing of the comparison of automatic methods to find bug inducting changes. Our results indicate that more attention should be paid to whether a bug has been introduced and, when it was introduced.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ESEM '18 Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Number of pages	4
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450358231
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-5823-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3267436
Publication status	Published - 11 Oct 2018
Event	12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement - Oulu, Finland Duration: 11 Oct 2018 → 12 Oct 2018 Conference number: 12 http://eseiw2018.wixsite.com/esem2018

Conference

Conference	12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Abbreviated title	ESEM'18
Country/Territory	Finland
City	Oulu
Period	11/10/18 → 12/10/18
Internet address	http://eseiw2018.wixsite.com/esem2018

Keywords

Bug-introducing change
Empirical study
SZZ algorithm

Access to Document

10.1145/3239235.3267436

Cite this

Rodriguez Perez, G., Zaidman, A., Serebrenik, A., Robles, G., & González-Barahona, J. M. (2018). What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change. In ESEM '18 Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement Article 52 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3267436

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abstract = "Background: Many studies in the software research literature on bug fixing are built upon the assumption that {"}a given bug was introduced by the lines of code that were modified to fix it{"}, or variations of it. Although this assumption seems very reasonable at first glance, there is little empirical evidence supporting it. A careful examination surfaces that there are other possible sources for the introduction of bugs such as modifications to those lines that happened before the last change an changes external to the piece of code being fixed. Goal: We aim at understanding the complex phenomenon of bug introduction and bug fix. Method: We design a preliminary approach distinguishing between bug introducing commits (BIC) and first failing moments (FFM). We apply this approach to Nova and ElasticSearch, two large and well-known open source software projects. Results: In our initial results we obtain that at least 24% bug fixes in Nova and 10% in ElasticSearch have not been caused by a BIC but by co-evolution, compatibility issues or bugs in external API. Merely 26--29% of BICs can be found using the algorithm based on the assumption that {"}a given bug was introduced by the lines of code that were modified to fix it{"}. Conclusions: The approach allows also for a better framing of the comparison of automatic methods to find bug inducting changes. Our results indicate that more attention should be paid to whether a bug has been introduced and, when it was introduced.",

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Rodriguez Perez, G, Zaidman, A, Serebrenik, A, Robles, G & González-Barahona, JM 2018, What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change. in ESEM '18 Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement., 52, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, New York, 12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, Oulu, Finland, 11/10/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3239235.3267436

What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change. / Rodriguez Perez, Gema; Zaidman, Andy; Serebrenik, A. et al.
ESEM '18 Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2018. 52.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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Rodriguez Perez G, Zaidman A, Serebrenik A, Robles G, González-Barahona JM. What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change. In ESEM '18 Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2018. 52 doi: 10.1145/3239235.3267436

What if a bug has a different origin? making sense of bugs without an explicit bug introducing change

Abstract

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Keywords

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