This topic explains how to configure Parasoft Test products to compute authorship and assign quality tasks across the team.

Sections include:

About Task Assignment and Authorship

There are typically many different team members working on a development project throughout the SDLC—from developers of application logic, to developers of the Web interface, to QA testers verifying end-to-end processes and transactions.

Using technologies ranging from peer review workflow automation, to static analysis, to unit testing, to runtime error detection, to SOA policy enforcement, to functional testing of individual SOA components as well as end-to-end test scenarios, Parasoft Test products generates quality tasks for the various team members to perform. These tasks can then be assigned to the appropriate team members based on manual assignments or automatically-detected authorship data.

This task assignment is used to:

Developer Task Assignment

For developers, code authorship data can affect how much code is tested and which test results that are shown in each developer’s Quality Tasks view.

By changing a Test Configuration’s Scope settings, you can configure tests to cover only files or lines that you authored, or only files or lines that you modified after a specified date. Moreover, if the Test only files/lines authored by [your_username] Scope option is set for the Test Configuration used for a test, the Quality Tasks view will show only testing tasks from code that you authored and any additional tasks that were reassigned to you. 

QA Task Assignment

For QA, Parasoft Test can assign tasks based on source control data in a number of ways:

If you have added source files to a project in the Parasoft Test environment, you can see the team member assigned to a particular line of that source file, as well as information about when it was last modified:

  1. Open an editor for the appropriate file.
  2. Right-click the line whose author you want to view, then choose  Parasoft> Show Author at Line from the shortcut menu

Note that if you are not using source control data to calculate task ownership, the message will show modification information for the file (rather than for the specific line selected).

Understanding Parasoft Test’s Author and Task Assignments

Parasoft Test can assign error ownership according to source control data (from supported source control systems), the @author Javadoc tag, xml mapping files (direct file-to-author mappings), and/or the current local user.

If you use multiple sources to determine authorship, authorship priority is determined by reading your settings in the Preference panel’s Scope and Authorship page from top to bottom (source control first, @author tags second, a direct mapping file next, current user last). However, if one of the selected options does not determine an author (for instance, the @author tag was selected but the file does not have an @author tag), Parasoft Test determines authorship based on the next option selected. If Parasoft Test still fails to determine an author, the user is set as "unknown". Likewise, if none of these options is selected, the user is set as "unknown."

If you configure Parasoft Test to use both source control and @author tags for authorship computation, source control will be checked whenever possible, and @author will be used for projects and files which are not under source control.

If you choose to use the current local user, the local user will be considered the author and the local modification time will be considered the last modification time.

Parasoft Test assigns authorship and tasks as follows:

To see the author assigned to a particular line of source code, as well as information about when it was last modified:

  1. Open an editor for the appropriate file.
  2. Right-click the line whose author you want to view, then choose  Parasoft> Show Author at Line from the shortcut menu

Note that if you are not using source control data to calculate authorship, the message will show modification information for the entire file (rather than for the specific line selected).

Changing How Authorship is Computed

Authorship computation settings can be specified:

To use GUI controls to change authorship computation:

  1. Choose Parasoft> Preferences to open the Preferences dialog.
  2. Select the Parasoft> Scope and Authorship category in the left pane.
  3. Use the available controls to indicate how you want Parasoft Test to compute scope and authorship.
  4. Click OK to set and save your settings.

For details on how to set authorship settings through localsettings, see Configuring Localsettings.

Specifying File-to-Author Mappings

If you want to directly specify which authors are responsible for which files (rather than have authorship calculated automatically, you can specify file-to-author mappings. These mapping can be automatically configured once, then shared across the team using the auto-configuration process described in Configuring SOAtest Across Teams.

To directly specify how you want particular files or sets of files assigned:

  1. Indicate that you will be entering mappings directly as follows:
    1. Choose Parasoft> Preferences to open the Preferences dialog.
    2. Select the Scope and Authorship category in the left pane.
    3. Select Use file system (xml map) to compute scope.
  2. Enter file-to-author mapping details as follows:
    1. Select the Scope and Authorship> Authorship Mapping category in the Preferences dialog.
    2. Specify your mappings in the authorship mapping table. Note that wildcards are allowed; for example:
      • ?oo/src/SomeClass.java - assigns all files whose names starts with any character (except /) and ends with "oo/src/
      • **.cs - assigns all *.cs files in any directory
      • **/src/** - assigns every file whose path has a folder named "src"
      • src/** - assigns all files located in directory "src"

      • src/**/Test* - assigns all files in directory "src" whose name starts with "Test" (e.g.,  "src/some/other/dir/TestFile.c")

        Place the most general paths at the end of the mapping. For example, /ATM/** path is the last here because it is the most general:
        /ATM/unittests/**  user 1

        /ATM/other/**       user 2

        /ATM/**                user 3

        This assigns unittests files to user 1, other files to user 2, and all other ATM project files to user1. If you reversed the order, all ATM files would be assigned to user 3.

    3. Click Save Changes.
  3. If you’re not already sharing these preferences across the team, click Export to export the mappings as an XML file, then have team members import the mapping file.

Alternatively, you can direct Parasoft Test to use the exported XML file by either:

A sample XML authorship mapping file follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE authorship (View Source for full doctype...)>
<authorship>
  <!-- assigns all files named: "foo/src/SomeClass.java" to "author1" -->
  <file author="author1" path="foo/src/SomeClass.java" />

  <!-- assigns all files whose names starts with any character (except /) and ends with "oo/
src/SomeClass.cs" to "author2" -->
  <file author="author2" path="?oo/src/SomeClass.cs" />
  <!-- assigns all *.c files in any directory to "author3" -->
  <file author="author3" path="**.c" />
  <!-- assigns every file whose path has a folder named "src" to "author4" -->
  <file author="author4" path="**/src/**" />
  <!-- assigns all files located in directory "src" to "author5" -->
  <file author="author5" path="src/**" />
  <!-- assigns all files in directory "src" whose name starts with "Test" i.e. "src/some/
other/dir/TestFile.java" to "author6" -->
  <file author="author6" path="src/**/Test*" />
</authorship>

Generating an XML Mapping File From Source Control

A script can be used to generate an XML mapping file from a source control system. The following sample Perl script demonstrates how to generate an authorship mapping file from CVS. If you are using a different source control system, make the appropriate modifications.

#!perl

############################################################
# GetAuthors.pl
# Sample script to generate file --> author mapping.
# Note that this is usually run only once, when you first
# deploy Parasoft Test .
#
# This script assumes that you have a list of all the files in the
# project. For example, such a list can be obtained on windows
# by using "dir /s/b *.c" for c files.
############################################################

sub GetAuthor
############################################################
# Gets the author (person who last modified the file) for
# the input file.
############################################################
{
   my $fileName = shift(@_);
   my $author = "DontKnow";
   system qq(cvs log $fileName > cvslog.txt);
   open(TMPFILE, "< cvslog.txt") || die "Could not open cvslog.txt";
   while (<TMPFILE>)
   {
         chop;
          if (m/(^date.*author:)(.*)(;[\s]*state)(.*)/)
          {
              $author = $2;
          }
   }
   close TMPFILE;
   return $author;
}

print "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>\n";
print "<mapping>\n";

############################################################
# AllCFiles.txt has a list of all the c files in the
# project. The following loop iterates through all the
# files and assigns owners to each.
############################################################
open(FILELIST, "<AllCFiles.txt") || die "Could not open AllCSFiles.txt";
while (<FILELIST>)
{
    chop;
    my $fileName = $_;
    my $author = GetAuthor($fileName);
    print "<file path=\"$fileName\" ";
    print "author=\"$author\" />\n";
}

print "</mapping>\n";

Specifying Author-to-Author and Author-to-Email Mappings

By default, Parasoft Test assumes that each username value it detects (e.g., based on source control data, the system’s local user settings, @author tags, direct mapping files, imported scanner.properties files) is the code author’s username, and that the related developer’s email is [username]@[mail_domain].

However, in some cases, you might want to map the detected username to a different username and/or email address. For example:

These authorship settings can be automatically configured once, then shared across the team using the auto-configuration process described in Configuring Preferences Overview.

If the appropriate authorship settings ARE NOT already set from the auto-configuration process—or if you want to change/override the imported settings—you can map the default user value detected to a different username and/or email address as follows:

  1. Choose Parasoft> Preferences.
  2. Open the Parasoft> Authors tab.
  3. Ensure that Use Concerto settings is not enabled.
  4. Ensure that Authors mapping file location is not enabled.
  5. If you want to specify "author to email" mappings:
    1. Got to the  Login / Email / Full name table.
    2. Click Add.
    3. Specify the desired mapping in the table
  6. If you want to specify "author to author" mappings: 
    1. Go to the Reassign tasks from this author... To this author table.
    2. Click Add.
    3. Specify the desired mapping in the table.
  7. Click the Apply button to save your changes.

In all the UI locations that allow you to enter a team member’s name or email address (e.g., email notifications, reassign tasks, test only files authored by, etc.), you can start typing a name/address, then select one of the autocomplete suggestions.

 


A warning will alert you if enter a name or email that is not in the Concerto database—for example, in case you made a typo.

You can also specify the author mappings in a localsettings file (from the command line or in the Parasoft Test preferences stored on Concerto).

To do this:

  1. Set authors.mappings.location=local.
  2. Use authors.mapping to specify the appropriate mappings.
  3. Use authors.user to specify email settings.

For example:

authors.mappings.location=local

authors.mapping1=baduser,gooduser

authors.mapping2=brokenuser,fixeduser

authors.mapping3=olduser,newuser

authors.user1=gooduser,[email protected],Gooduser Stowe

authors.user2=fixeduser,[email protected],Fixeduser White

...

Determining Case Sensitivity Mode

You can determine whether author values are treated as case sensitive or case insensitive. This case sensitivity setting applies to author values in:

The case sensitivity setting here should match the case sensitivity setting in Concerto. By default, Concerto is case sensitive. For details on configuring case sensitivity in Concerto, see the Concerto User’s Guide.

Case Sensitivity Details

The case sensitivity setting determines whether multiple variations of the same user name will be treated as one user or multiple users, For example:

Case insensitive mode is especially helpful when teams use an external database where the case of the user names is not significant. If the username david is stored as DAVID in the database and you are in case sensitive mode, tasks imported for DAVID will not be matched up to david.

Case Sensitivity Configuration

You can set case sensitivity settings in the Preferences panel (Parasoft> Authors> Ignore case of user names in Parasoft Test platform).



You can also configure this mode with the localsettings option authors.ignore.case=true|false. For details on localsettings options, see Configuring Localsettings.

Handling Authorship When Using Multiple Source Control Systems

If you and/or your team members work with multiple source control system, but use the same login for all source control systems, start the product as follows to ensure accurate authorship computation from source control:

Manually Setting the Local User

If you are using  "local user" data to determine authorship, Parasoft will, by default, use the local user settings defined on the machine.

If you want to use a different user name, go to the top-level Parasoft Preferences page, clear Default, then enter the appropriate name in the User name field.