Simultaneous Modification Support based on Code Clone Analysis

Maintaining software systems becomes more difficult as their size and complexity increase. One factor that makes software maintenance more difficult is the presence of code clones. A code clone is defined as a code fragment occurring more than once in identical or similar form into a software system. For example, the presence of code clones is a big factor of overlooking some places that should be modified simultaneously. One technique that helps the number of code clones is Refactoring. There are several research efforts that provide support to refactor code clones, but unfortunately some code clones cannot or should not be refactored (ex. stereotyped process, absence of abstraction functionality, performance enhancement). In order to support maintaining the consistency among code clones, we propose a simultaneous modification support method. Given a software system, firstly, a maintainer identifies a code fragment that must be modified. Then, only the code clones between the identif...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: APSEC
• Authors: Yoshiki Higo, Yasushi Ueda, Shinji Kusumoto, Katsuro Inoue
• Keywords: APSEC 2007, Code Clones, Code Fragment, Software Engineering, Software Systems