Import comments written in Polyspace Access

Hello,

I´m starting to use Polyspace Access in a continuous integration workflow and want to know when and how comments which have been set at Polyspace Access are integrated into the created reports. At earlier versions I used the "import comments" function where the last result was checked to integrate all comments which were identified as unchanged. Is that option set by default at Polyspace Server usage or only available if I set it actively in the options file together with the result directory? And where does it take the old result from? Is it also downloaded from the configuration management system?

Another related question is if it is possible to trigger a new report creation after adding comments to the finding manually? Or does the software developer need to wait for the next automatic run until the report is updated?

Thank you and best regards,

Birgit

Answer 1

[Anirban]

Hi Birgit,

If you upload a result to the same project in Polyspace Access as a previous result, all review information from the previous result are imported to the new one. In a CI system, say you upload the result of run x to Polyspace Access (using the polyspace-access command). Then, in the Polyspace Access web interface, you update the review information for some findings in the result, for instance, add some comments. When you upload the result of run x+1 to the same project in Polyspace Access, all review information from run x , including the ones added later, will be imported.

See this documentation topic Import Review Information from Previous Polyspace Analysis. Specifically, this part is relevant:

"If you upload results to the Polyspace Access web interface, review information from the last run of the same project are applied to the current run. You cannot disable the automatic import."

The answer to your second question is: yes, you can generate a report anytime from findings in Polyspace Access. See the polyspace-report-generator documentation. Use the second group of syntaxes on the page.

[Birgit Roithner]

Hello Anirban,

thank you for the fast answer. Can I inform the Jenkins about an update in the Polyspace Access database to only trigger the report generation for one program? Or is it possible for the Jenkins to search for an updated database entry? Because the command line calls mentioned from you are only for general report generation and not specifically after the update of a review information.

Thank you and best regards,

Birgit

[Anirban]

Hi Birgit,

It might be better to understand your eventual goal here. For instance, one common workflow is to assign to developers bugs in code that they changed. If this is your goal, the Polyspace plugin in Jenkins supports this goal directly. The plugin even allows you to email the list of bugs with their Access URLs to the concerned developer. See details in the documentation topic Sample Scripts for Polyspace Analysis with Jenkins. Sometimes, users use comments and report generation for this sort of assignment, but it is much less efficient.

The plugin ultimately uses the polyspace-access command with the -export option to create the email attachment with list of bugs. This command is more powerful than the polyspace-report-generator command, in the sense that it allows you much more filtering capabilities. For instance, you can simply filter out the new results with a certain status with the options -new-findings and -review-status. So, in your Jenkins script, you can have a workflow where you export only results that are new compared to the previous analysis and assigned a status such as 'To fix'. Or, just assigned a status such as 'To fix', irrespective of whether they are new or not. (In fact, it is also a way to poll if the status of a result changed. For instance, if you filter for new findings only with status 'To fix' and you get no results, it means that there are no new findings since the last run that have been reviewed and then marked for fixing.)

Eventually, report generation is meant for creating and archiving static snapshots of a result at different points in time. If you want a more interactive usage, there might be better ways to achieve this. Let us know if the polyspace-access command does not support the workflow you have in mind, or if you really need the kind of formal report generation that the polyspace-report-generator provides. (Note that you can also achieve some filtering with the report generation, but it requires modifying the report template and involves a lot more work. See the documentation Customize Existing Bug Finder Report Template. You might need to contact Technical Support for this usage.)

[Birgit Roithner]

Hi Anirban,

in my project we have to store all development artifacts in a configuration management system. Because we are continuously developing and releasing the software it is not always possible to fix all found bugs directly for the next release but create tickets and plan the fixing for the upcoming release. Nevertheless the created and delivered report needs to contain the information that a ticket was created and is planed to proove that the finding was analyzed.

Now I´m trying to find a smart solution how I can generate a new report and storing it in the CM system after adding comments in Polypsace Access without a complete rerun of all Polyspace projects. That´s also necessary to not update the whole result when only the report changed.

Do you have any suggestion for me or should I contact the technical support?

Thank you and best regards,

Birgit

[Anirban]

Thanks for the precise problem statement. If I rephrase it a bit, you are still going to generate reports at periodic intervals or specific milestones (since it doesnt make sense to generate reports after every update of comments). However, at the time of report generation, you want to check if there have been any updates at all, and based on the response, generate the report. This will save you some unnecessary report generation.

Unfortunately, I could not find a documented way to poll whether a result on Access has been updated. However, Technical Support often has undocumented tricks up their sleeves. Feel free to contact them. You can point to this answer to save on some initial conversations.