Supporting the Analysis of Clones in Software Systems: A Case Study
Cory J. Kapser, Michael W. Godfrey · 2005
... In this paper we present an in-depth case study of cloning in a large software system that is in wide use, the Apache web server; we provide insights into cloning as it exists in this system, and we demonstrate techniques to manage and make effective use of the large result sets of clone detection tools. In our case study, we found several interesting types of cloning occurrences, such as "cloning hotspots", where a single subsystem comprising only 17% of the system code contained 38.8% of the clones. We also found several examples of cloning behavior that were beneficial to the development of the system, in particular cloning as a way to add experimental functionality