Extracting code clones for refactoring using combinations of clone metrics

• DOI: 10.1145/1985404.1985407
• Publication Date: 2011-05-24T13:04:30Z
• Authors: Eunjong Choi; Norihiro Yoshida; Takashi Ishio; Katsuro Inoue; Tateki Sano
• Keywords: Code refactoring; clone (Java method); Code (set theory); Cloning (programming)

Code clone detection tools may report a large number of code clones, while software developers are interested in only subset clones that relevant to development tasks such as refactoring. Our research group has supported many with the tool CCFinder and its GUI front-end Gemini. Gemini shows sets (i.e., set identical or similar each other) several metrics including their length clones; however, it is not clear how use those extract interesting for developers. In this paper, we propose method combining refactoring activity. We have conducted an empirical study on web application developed by Japanese company. The result indicates combinations simple metric more effective candidates detected than individual metric.