issueLinkType is not finding negative results

[Ron Feldman]

Using Jira cloud

Following Advanced search reference - JQL fields cloud documentation.

This clause:

and issueLinkType = "is tested by"

returns 3 results, as expected.

This clause:

and issueLinkType != "is tested by"

returns 0 results, whereas about 8 are expected.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I think you've run into the thing where humans are not as logical as computers and assume "not there" is the same as "is not".  We are not good a negative logic.

Let's say you've got 11 issues, 3 have links of type "is tested by", 6 have links of another type, and the last 2 have no links.

When you say "issueLinkType != "is tested by", a human will get the logic wrong, and answer 8. 

But that's logically wrong, because there's actually only 6 that have links that are not of that type.  The other 2 don't have links, so they can't have links that are not of that type.  Neither do they have links that are of that type.

My guess is your about-8 issues don't have any links.  So they don't have any links that are not "is tested by"

[Roman Wolf]

Try to extends your JQL query in the way:

(issueLinkType != "is tested by" OR issueLinkType is EMPTY)

 I ran into this problem myself wondering why and where the rest disappears, "is EMPTY" comes to the rescue for some of fields.

Roman