The pragmatics of clone detection and elimination

TL;DR

This paper presents industrial case studies on clone detection and elimination, highlighting practical decision-making challenges and design principles for effective clone management tools in real-world software projects.

Contribution

It provides insights into the pragmatics of clone elimination in practice and informs the design of clone detection tools based on real-world case studies.

Findings

Case studies with Ericsson using Wrangler tool

Decision-making complexities in clone elimination

Design principles for clone detection decision-support tools

Abstract

The occurrence of similar code, or `code clones', can make program code difficult to read, modify and maintain. This paper describes industrial case studies of clone detection and elimination using a refactoring and clone detection tool. We discuss how the studies have informed the design of the tool; more importantly, we use the studies to illustrate the complex set of decisions that have to be taken when performing clone elimination in practice. The case studies were performed in collaboration with engineers from Ericsson AB, and used the refactoring tool Wrangler for Erlang. However, the conclusions we draw are largely language-independent, and set out the pragmatics of clone detection and elimination in real-world projects as well as design principles for clone detection decision-support tools.