Patent ID: 8655845

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for reducing duplicate information when reporting data processing system incidents, the method comprising: receiving diagnostic data associated with a new incident that has occurred in the data processing system; creating at least one new incident dump file for the new incident that includes some or all of the diagnostic data; comparing the diagnostic data in the at least one new incident dump file to diagnostic data in at least one corresponding preceding incident dump file; responsive to the at least one new incident dump file comprising diagnostic data that is different from the at least one corresponding preceding incident dump file, generating at least one comparison dump file that comprises only the differences in the at least one new incident dump file that are not contained in the at least one corresponding preceding incident dump file, wherein generating the at least one comparison dump file that comprises only the differences in the at least one new incident dump file that are not contained in the corresponding preceding incident dump file further compromises: generating at least one temporary comparison file that comprises the differences in the at least one new incident dump file that are not contained in the at least one corresponding preceding incident dump file; comparing a size of the at least one temporary comparison file to a size of the corresponding new incident dump file; responsive to the size of the at least one temporary comparison file being less than the size of the corresponding new incident dump file, storing the at least one temporary comparison file as the at least one comparison dump file in a storage device in the data processing system; and responsive to the to the size of the at least one temporary comparison file being greater than or equal to the size of the corresponding new incident clump file, storing the corresponding new incident dump file as the at least one comparison dump file in a storage device in the data processing system; and transmitting a report package to a support system, wherein the report package includes the at least one comparison dump file.