{"id":158524,"date":"2009-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/finding-min-repros-in-database-software\/"},"modified":"2024-02-26T16:39:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T00:39:05","slug":"finding-min-repros-in-database-software","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/finding-min-repros-in-database-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Min-Repros in Database Software"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"asset-content\">\n<p>Testing and debugging database system applications is often challenging and time consuming. A database tester (or DB tester for short) has to detect a problem, determine why it happened, set up an environment to reproduce it, and then create a \ufb01x to resolve the problem. In many cases, problems appear in very complex scenarios, and thus the reproduction of a problem may be large and di\ufb03cult to understand. This makes the task of \ufb01nding the root cause of the problem very di\ufb03cult. As a consequence, a very time-consuming task for DB testers is \ufb01nding a min-repro \u2013 a process of weeding out irrelevant inputs and \ufb01nding the simplest way to reproduce a problem. Currently, a great deal of searching for a min-repro is carried out manually, which is both slow and error-prone. In this paper, we present a system designed to ease \ufb01nding min-repros in database-related products. The system employs a number of tools for min-repro search, including: novel simpli\ufb01cation transformations, a high-level script language to automate sub-tasks and to guide the search, record-and-replay functionality, and an intuitive representation of results and the search space. These tools can save hours of time (for both customers and testers to isolate the problem), which could lead to faster \ufb01xes and large cost savings to organizations. Our min-repro system can be executed in two modes: (1) application mode and (2) game mode. The complexity and the tediosness of debugging has prompted us to explore the potential for a \u201cgame-like\u201d approach to minrepro search. Inspired in part by the fact that humans enjoy \u201cfun applications\u201d and by the prevalence of long-term play of computer games, we believe that a game-like approach could help make the process of searching for a min repro more enjoyable and possibly help \ufb01nd min-repros faster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Testing and debugging database system applications is often challenging and time consuming. A database tester (or DB tester for short) has to detect a problem, determine why it happened, set up an environment to reproduce it, and then create a \ufb01x to resolve the problem. In many cases, problems appear in very complex scenarios, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13563],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-158524","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-data-platform-analytics","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2009-6-1","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"DBTest","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"223921","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/dbTest09MinRepro.pdf","id":"223921","title":"dbTest09MinRepro.pdf","label_id":"243109","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":223921,"url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/dbTest09MinRepro.pdf"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Nico Bruno","user_id":43155,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Nico Bruno"},{"type":"text","value":"Rimma V. Nehme","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"article","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/158524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/158524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009971,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/158524\/revisions\/1009971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=158524"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=158524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}