Detection Of Duplicate Code
Kanchan A. Jadhao, Nikita S.Varhade Shubhendra R.Puri · International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science · 2013
Task of managing duplicated or “cloned” code has occupied the minds of programmers for the past 50 years. During this time, researchers and practitioners have developed a variety of techniques for removing or avoiding it by employing functions, macros and other programming abstractions. Functional abstraction was designed into early programming languages, such as Fortran and Lisp. Object-oriented programming, originating with Simula-67, has provided further mechanisms for parameterized reuse to avoid duplication. Aspect-oriented programming has allowed cross-cutting duplication to be abstracted. Engineering practices like Refactoring and Extreme Programming have promoted specific methodologies of abstracting duplicated code. In the last decade, a multitude of tools have been developed (both in research and in industry) that help programmers semi-automatically find and refactor existing duplication into functions, macros and methods. Given this long-term commitment to programming abstractions as a solution use “duplicated code” and “cloned code” synonymously to mean two or more multi-line code fragments that are either identical or similar, particularly in their structure. Duplicated code, it stands to reason that there should be little duplication left in practice. Keywords: Software maintenance, code duplication detection, code visualization