PART 5: Software Trace Analysis Patterns

Hidden Facts

The previous patterns such as Basic Facts (Volume 3, page 345) and Vocabulary Index (Volume 4, page 349) address the mapping of a problem description to software execution artefacts such traces and logs. Indirect Facts (Volume7, page 319) analysis pattern addresses the problem of an incomplete problem description. However, we need another pattern for completeness that addresses the mapping from a log to troubleshooting and debugging recommendations. We call it Hidden Facts that are uncovered by trace and log analysis. Of course, there can be many such hidden facts and usually they are uncovered after narrowing down analysis to particular Threads of Activity (Volume 4, page 339), Adjoint Threads (Volume 5, page 283), Message Context (Volume 7, page 289), Message Set (Volume 7, page 349), or Data Flow (Volume 7, page 296). The need for that pattern had arisen during the pattern-oriented analysis of the trace case study from Malcolm McCaffery²² and can be illustrated on this diagram:

²² http://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/case-of-the-outlook-cannot-display-this-view/