Bug Life Cycle

Bug Life Cycle: Introduction:

Bug can be defined as the abnormal behavior of the software. No software exists without a bug. The elimination of bugs from the software depends upon the efficiency of testing done on the software. A bug is a specific concern about the quality of the Application under Test (AUT). Bug Life Cycle:

In software development process, the bug has a life cycle. The bug should go through the life cycle to be closed. A specific life cycle ensures that the process is standardized. The bug attains different states in the life cycle. The life cycle of the bug can be shown diagrammatically as follows:

The different states of a bug can be summarized as follows: 1. New 2. Open 3. Assign 4. Test 5. Verified 6. Deferred 7. Reopened 8. Duplicate

9. Rejected and 10. Closed Description of Various Stages:

1. New: When the bug is posted for the first time, its state will be “NEW”. This means that the bug is not yet approved. 2. Open: After a tester has posted a bug, the lead of the tester approves that the bug is genuine and he changes the state as “OPEN”. 3. Assign: Once the lead changes the state as “OPEN”, he assigns the bug to corresponding developer or developer team. The state of the bug now is changed to “ASSIGN”. 4. Test: Once the developer fixes the bug, he has to assign the bug to the testing team for next round of testing. Before he releases the software with bug fixed, he changes the state of bug to “TEST”. It specifies that the bug has been fixed and is released to testing team. 5. Deferred: The bug, changed to deferred state means the bug is expected to be fixed in next releases. The reasons for changing the bug to this state have many factors. Some of them are priority of the bug may be low, lack of time for the release or the bug may not have major effect on the software. 6. Rejected: If the developer feels that the bug is not genuine, he rejects the bug. Then the state of the bug is changed to “REJECTED”. 7. Duplicate: If the bug is repeated twice or the two bugs mention the same concept of the bug, then one bug status is changed to “DUPLICATE”. 8. Verified: Once the bug is fixed and the status is changed to “TEST”, the tester tests the bug. If the bug is not present in the software, he approves that the bug is fixed and changes the status to “VERIFIED”. 9. Reopened: If the bug still exists even after the bug is fixed by the developer, the tester changes the status to “REOPENED”. The bug traverses the life cycle once again. 10. Closed: Once the bug is fixed, it is tested by the tester. If the tester feels that the bug no longer exists in the software, he changes the status of the bug to “CLOSED”. This state means that the bug is fixed, tested and approved. While defect prevention is much more effective and efficient in reducing the number of defects, most organization conducts defect discovery and removal. Discovering and removing defects is an expensive and inefficient process. It is much more efficient for an organization to conduct activities that prevent defects. Guidelines on deciding the Severity of Bug:

Indicate the impact each defect has on testing efforts or users and administrators of the application under test. This information is used by developers and management as the basis for assigning priority of work on defects. A sample guideline for assignment of Priority Levels during the product test phase includes: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Critical / Show Stopper — An item that prevents further testing of the product or function under test can be classified as Critical Bug. No workaround is possible for such bugs. Examples of this include a missing menu option or security permission required to access a function under test. . Major / High — A defect that does not function as expected/designed or cause other functionality to fail to meet requirements can be classified as Major Bug. The workaround can be provided for such bugs. Examples of this include inaccurate calculations; the wrong field being updated, etc. . Average / Medium — The defects which do not conform to standards and conventions can be classified as Medium Bugs. Easy workarounds exists to achieve functionality objectives. Examples include matching visual and text links which lead to different end points. . Minor / Low — Cosmetic defects which does not affect the functionality of the system can be classified as Minor Bugs.

The typical lifecycle of a bug is as follows: 1. Bug is identified in system and created in Bugs Online 2. Bug is assigned to a developer 3. Developer resolves bug or clarifies with user 4. Developer sets bug to "Completed" status and assigns back to original user 5. Original user verifies that bug has been resolved and if so sets bug to "Closed" status. Only the original user who created the bug has access to "Close" the bug. Once the bug is closed it may never be re-opened or have future activity. 6. If the bug was not resolved to the user's satisfaction they may assign it back to the developer with a description (by adding a new detail). If this occurs then the bug returns to step 2 above. It is important to note that throughout the lifecycle of a bug, it should be assigned to someone. The system will allow for a bug to not be assigned but the usage of this feature should be minimal. By insuring that a bug is always assigned to a user or a developer, system administrators will maintain a high level of accountability for all bugs submitted to the system.

A Bug's Life Cycle The status and resolution field define and track the life cycle of a bug.

STATUS

RESOLUTION

The status field indicates the general health The resolution field indicates what happened to this of a bug. Only certain status transitions are bug. allowed. UNCONFIRMED This bug has recently been added to the database. Nobody has validated that this bug is true. Users who have the "canconfirm" permission set may confirm this bug, changing its state to NEW. Or, it may be directly resolved and marked RESOLVED. NEW This bug has recently been added to the assignee's list of bugs and must be processed. Bugs in this state may be accepted, and become ASSIGNED, passed on to someone else, and remain NEW, or resolved and marked RESOLVED. ASSIGNED This bug is not yet resolved, but is assigned to the proper person. From here bugs can be given to another person and become NEW, or resolved and become RESOLVED. REOPENED This bug was once resolved, but the resolution was deemed incorrect. For example, a WORKSFORME bug is REOPENED when more information shows up and the bug is now reproducible. From here bugs are either marked ASSIGNED or RESOLVED.

No resolution yet. All bugs which are in one of these "open" states have the resolution set to blank. All other bugs will be marked with one of the following resolutions.

RESOLVED FIXED A resolution has been taken, and it is A fix for this bug is checked into the tree and awaiting verification by QA. From tested. here bugs are either re-opened and INVALID become REOPENED, are marked The problem described is not a bug VERIFIED, or are closed for good WONTFIX

and marked CLOSED. VERIFIED QA has looked at the bug and the resolution and agrees that the appropriate resolution has been taken. Bugs remain in this state until the product they were reported against actually ships, at which point they become CLOSED. CLOSED The bug is considered dead, the resolution is correct. Any zombie bugs who choose to walk the earth again must do so by becoming REOPENED.

The problem described is a bug which will never be fixed. LATER The problem described is a bug which will not be fixed in this version of the product. REMIND The problem described is a bug which will probably not be fixed in this version of the product, but might still be. DUPLICATE The problem is a duplicate of an existing bug. Marking a bug duplicate requires the bug# of the duplicating bug and will at least put that bug number in the description field. WORKSFORME All attempts at reproducing this bug were futile, reading the code produces no clues as to why this behavior would occur. If more information appears later, please re-assign the bug, for now, file it.

Other Fields Severity This field describes the impact of a bug. Blocks development Blocker and/or testing work crashes, loss of data, Critical severe memory leak Major major loss of function minor loss of function, or other problem Minor where easy workaround is present cosmetic problem like Trivial misspelled words or misaligned text Request for Enhancement enhancement

Priority This field describes the importance and order in which a bug should be fixed. This field is utilized by the programmers/engineers to prioritized their work to be done. The available priorities are: P1 Most important P2 P3 P4 P5 Least important