What and Why Commits are Reverted Through API Migrations: A Comparative Study of Open-Source Software Projects
Omar Meqdadi, Hatim Migdadi, Nazim Choudhury · 2025
Despite the noble objectives (e.g., fixing a bug, implementing new features, or refactoring), the cyclic and evolutionary process of software development often inadvertently introduces problematic commits. These commits disrupt the development process by injecting defects that compromise the efficiency, scalability, and security of an application. A popular, cost-effective, and coarse-grained approach to recover from problematic commits that modify the source code files during the evolution process is to revert them. Reverted commits can present several potential challenges for software systems. In this study, we present a case study of six open-source systems to explore the possibility of identifying and characterizing commits that are likely to be reverted in API-migration tasks. Two measures, namely age and intent, were defined and used to characterize the reverted commits. The findings of this study indicate that the commits involved in long-lasting problematic changes that are more likely to be reverted in API-migration tasks are often caused by bug fixing and refactoring activities.