CCCD: Concolic code clone detection

Abstract

Code clones are multiple code fragments that produce similar results when provided the same input. Prior research has shown that clones can be harmful since they elevate maintenance costs, increase the number of bugs caused by inconsistent changes to cloned code and may decrease programmer compre-hensibility due to the increased size of the code base. To assist in the detection of code clones, we propose a new tool known as Concolic Code Clone Discovery (CCCD). CCCD is the first known clone detection tool that uses concolic analysis as its primary component and is one of only three known techniques which are able to reliably detect the most complicated kind of clones, type-4 clones.