JCL Exclusions

[Evan Macaulay]

Hi All,

I have a project with 822 open tickets.

This can be displayed with the JCL  - 
Project = x and status != Done

i have a number of tickets set up with a unique component
The JCL query returns 38 for the number of tickets with the component in JCL
project = x AND component = Y and status != Done

But if i try 
project = x AND component != Y and status != Done
I do not get  822 - 38 expected result of the query
instead I get a result of 415 ?

I am at a loss to figure out why.
Any thoughts please.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Forgive me for paraphrasing, but I struggled to read this a bit:  (And I assume you mean JQL...).  You are seeing:

• 822 found by "Project = x and status != Done"
• 38 found by "Project = x and status != Done and component = Y"
• 415 found by "Project = x and status != Done and component != Y"

Which is, if I'm thinking of this rightly, the correct answer, but totally counter-intuitive for us humans.

We tend to be bad at thinking in negatives and think "is not" includes all things that doo not have a particular characteristic, we don't automatically understand that the logical not comparison does not (and should not) assume that comparing null with not something is not the same as comparing something that is there with a particular value.

Another way to put that is I think you you are expecting "component is not Y" to match "there is no component to compare it with".  Jira can't answer "is component not Y" when there is no value to compare.

So, TLDR, try:

"Project = x and status != Done and component is empty"

[Evan Macaulay]

Hi Nic,
Appreciate the response.
I am just looking to exclude 1 specific component from the JQL 
Is there a way to do so reliably without falling into the logic trap you described above? 

I do have other components set up which i would want in the returned results.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Combine looking for "component is not Y" with "component is empty".  Assuming that is the problem, then

Project = x and status != Done and (component != Y or component is empty)"

[Evan Macaulay]

So I would need to specify every component in the JQL in order to exclude the 1 i do not want?

I can't use the component is empty as there are valid components for the JQL

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I do not quite understand that.

>So I would need to specify every component in the JQL in order to exclude the 1 i do not want?

No.  "component is not Y" finds all the issues that have components, excluding any issue that has a component of Y

>I can't use the component is empty as there are valid components for the JQL

It doesn't matter what the "valid components" are, what JQL does is looks at the issues.  If you want to list issues that have no component of Y because they don't have any component at all, you should use "components is empty"

Your question is "show me a list of all issues that do not have a component set to Y".  This is answered with "and (component != Y or component is empty)"

[Liam Green]

Hi @Evan Macaulay 

What do you get if you use?

project = x AND component != Y 

[Evan Macaulay]

I get a result of 726 which is closer but still not correct.

[Liam Green]

And of those 726 there are only 38 that are not done?