Evaluating the Performance of Clone Detection Tools in Detecting Cloned Co-change Candidates

• Published in: arXiv.org
• Main Authors: Nadim, Md, Mondal, Manishankar, Roy, Chanchal K, Schneider, Kevin
• Format: Paper Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 20.01.2022
• Subjects: Cloning; Computer Science - Software Engineering; Fragments; Impact analysis; Performance evaluation; Software
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2201.07996

Co-change candidates are the group of code fragments that require a change if any of these fragments experience a modification in a commit operation during software evolution. The cloned co-change candidates are a subset of the co-change candidates, and the members in this subset are clones of one another. The cloned co-change candidates are usually created by reusing existing code fragments in a software system. Detecting cloned co-change candidates is essential for clone-tracking, and studies have shown that we can use clone detection tools to find cloned co-change candidates. However, although several studies evaluate clone detection tools for their accuracy in detecting cloned fragments, we found no study that evaluates clone detection tools for detecting cloned co-change candidates. In this study, we explore the dimension of code clone research for detecting cloned co-change candidates. We compare the performance of 12 different configurations of nine promising clone detection tools in identifying cloned co-change candidates from eight open-source C and Java-based subject systems of various sizes and application domains. A ranked list and analysis of the results provides valuable insights and guidelines into selecting and configuring a clone detection tool for identifying co-change candidates and leads to a new dimension of code clone research into change impact analysis.