Towards contextual and on-demand code clone management by continuous monitoring
Abstract
Effective clone management is essential for developers to recognize the introduction and evolution of code clones, to judge their impact on software quality, and to take appropriate measures if required. Our previous study shows that cloning practice is not simply a technical issue. It must be interpreted and considered in a larger context from technical, personal, and organizational perspectives. In this paper, we propose a contextual and on-demand code clone management approach called CCEvents (Code Cloning Events). Our approach provides timely notification about relevant code cloning events for different stakeholders through continuous monitoring of code repositories. It supports on-demand customization of clone monitoring strategies in specific technical, personal, and organizational contexts using a domain-specific language. We implemented the proposed approach and conducted an empirical study with an industrial project. The results confirm the requirements for contextual and on-demand code clone management and show the effectiveness of CCEvents in providing timely code cloning notifications and in helping to achieve effective clone management.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{Zhang-al:ASE13,
author = {Gang Zhang and
Xin Peng and
Zhenchang Xing and
Shihai Jiang and
Hai Wang and
Wenyun Zhao},
title = {Towards contextual and on-demand code clone management by continuous monitoring},
booktitle = {ASE},
pages = {497--507},
publisher = {{IEEE}},
year = {2013},
}