Identifying, Tailoring, and Suggesting Form Template Method Refactoring Opportunities with Program Dependence Graph

Abstract

Many research efforts have been performed on removing code clones. Especially, it is highly expected that clone removal techniques by applying Form Template Method have high applicability because they can be applied to code clones that have some gaps. Consequently some researchers have proposed techniques to support refactoring with Form Template Method. However, previous research efforts still have some issues. In this paper, we propose a new technique with program dependence graph to resolve these issues. By using program dependence graph, we can handle trivial differences that are unrelated to behavior of a program. Consequently the proposed method can suggest more appropriate removal candidates than previously proposed techniques.