A Tool for Rejuvenating Feature Logging Levels via Git Histories and Degree of Interest

TL;DR

This paper presents an automated tool integrated into Eclipse that rejuvenates feature log levels by analyzing Git histories and developer interest, reducing manual effort and improving log relevance in evolving software projects.

Contribution

The paper introduces an open-source Eclipse plugin that automatically adjusts log levels based on developer interest, leveraging Git histories and the Degree of Interest metric, tested on large open-source Java projects.

Findings

Analyzes 99.22% of logging statements successfully.

Increases log level distribution by approximately 20%.

Enhances focus of logs in bug fix contexts by about 83%.

Abstract

Logging is a significant programming practice. Due to the highly transactional nature of modern software applications, massive amount of logs are generated every day, which may overwhelm developers. Logging information overload can be dangerous to software applications. Using log levels, developers can print the useful information while hiding the verbose logs during software runtime. As software evolves, the log levels of logging statements associated with the surrounding software feature implementation may also need to be altered. Maintaining log levels necessitates a significant amount of manual effort. In this paper, we demonstrate an automated approach that can rejuvenate feature log levels by matching the interest level of developers in the surrounding features. The approach is implemented as an open-source Eclipse plugin, using two external plug-ins (JGit and Mylyn). It was tested on 18 open-source Java projects consisting of ~3 million lines of code and ~4K log statements. Our tool successfully analyzes 99.22% of logging statements, increases log level distributions by ~20%, and increases the focus of logs in bug fix contexts ~83% of the time. For further details, interested readers can watch our demonstration video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIULoAXoDv4).