Detection Techniques of Dead Code: Systematic Literature Review
Camila Rodrigues Bastos, Paulo Afonso, Heitor Augustus Xavier Costa · IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science · 2016
The evolution is necessary for information systems do not become inadequate. However, this evolution has been identified as critical aspect in ensuring maintainability, because of the increased amount of dead code in these systems. The identification and elimination of dead code decreases the code size and the complexity, facilitating the understanding. Techniques have been proposed in the literature for automating the detection of dead code. Thus, Systematic Literature Review was performed to find existing dead code detection techniques. As result, two main techniques were found: Accessibility Analysis and Data Flow Analysis. In addition, quantitative and qualitative analysis were performed and they are presented to help researchers on which technique to use.