Background: Logging practices provide the ability to record valuable runtime information of software systems to support operations tasks such as service monitoring and troubleshooting. However, current logging practices face common challenges. On the one hand, although the importance of logging practices has been broadly recognized, most of them are still conducted in an arbitrary or ad-hoc manner, ending up with questionable or inadequate support to perform these tasks. On the other hand, considerable research effort has been carried out on logging practices, however, few of the proposed techniques or methods have been widely adopted in industry. Objective:This study aims to establish a comprehensive understanding of the research state of logging practices, with a focus on unveiling possible problems and gaps which further shed light on the potential future research directions. Method:We carried out a systematic mapping study on logging practices with 56 primary studies. Results:This study provides a holistic report of the existing research on logging practices by systematically synthesizing and analyzing the focus and inter-relationship of the existing research in terms of issues, research topics and solution approaches. Using 3W1H—Why to log, Where to log, What to log and How well is the logging—as the categorization standard, we find that: (1) the best known issues in logging practices have been repeatedly investigated; (2) the issues are often studied separately without considering their intricate relationships; (3) the Where and What questions have attracted the majority of research attention while little research effort has been made on the Why and How well questions; and (4) the relationships between issues, research topics, and approaches regarding logging practices appear many-to-many, which indicates a lack of profound understanding of the issues in practice and how they should be appropriately tackled. Conclusions:This study indicates a need to advance the state of research on logging practices. For example, more research effort should be invested on why to log to set the anchor of logging practices as well as on how well is the logging to close the loop. In addition, a holistic process perspective should be taken into account in both the research and the adoption related to logging practices.

中文翻译：

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软件工程中的记录实践：系统映射研究


背景：日志记录实践提供了记录软件系统有价值的运行时信息的能力，以支持服务监控和故障排除等操作任务。然而，当前的伐木实践面临着共同的挑战。一方面，尽管伐木实践的重要性已得到广泛认可，但其中大多数仍然以任意或临时的方式进行，最终导致执行这些任务的支持存在问题或不足。另一方面，人们对测井实践进行了大量的研究工作，然而，所提出的技术或方法很少被工业界广泛采用。目的：本研究旨在全面了解测井实践的研究现状，重点揭示可能存在的问题和差距，进一步阐明未来潜在的研究方向。方法：我们对伐木实践进行了系统绘图研究，共进行了 56 项初步研究。结果：本研究从问题、研究主题和解决方法等方面系统地综合和分析了现有研究的焦点和相互关系，对现有测井实践研究进行了全面的报告。 以3W1H——为什么记录、在哪里记录、记录什么以及记录的好坏——作为分类标准，我们发现：（1）记录实践中最知名的问题被反复调查； (2)常常单独研究问题，而不考虑它们之间错综复杂的关系； (3)Where和What问题引起了大多数研究的关注，而对Why和How well问题的研究却很少； (4)测井实践中的问题、研究主题和方法之间的关系呈现出多对多的关系，这表明对实践中的问题以及如何妥善解决这些问题缺乏深刻的认识。结论：这项研究表明需要推进伐木实践的研究状况。例如，应该投入更多的研究工作来研究为什么要记录日志以设置日志记录实践的锚点以及记录日志闭环的效果如何。此外，在与伐木实践相关的研究和采用中都应考虑整体过程的观点。