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Aspectualization of code clones—an algorithmic approach

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Abstract

System Modularity has positive effects on software maintainability, reusability, and understandability. One factor that can affect system modularity is code tangling due to code clones. Code tangling can have serious cross-cutting effects on the source code and thereby affect maintainability and reusability of the code. In this research we have developed an algorithmic approach to convert code clones to aspects in order to improve modularity and aid maintainability. Firstly, we use an existing code-clone detection tool to identify code clones in a source code. Secondly, we design algorithms to convert the code clones into aspects and do aspect composition with the original source code. Thirdly, we implement a prototype based on the algorithms. Fourthly, we carry out a performance analysis on the aspects composed source code and our analysis shows that the aspect composed code performs as well as the original code and even better in terms of execution times.

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Acknowledgments

This research work was partly supported by Canada NSERC Engage research grant number EGB 410451-10 and partly by Canada NSERC discovery grant number 250271. The testing of the prototype was done in collaboration with Cistel Inc., Ottawa, ON, Canada through the use of their software source code.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Samuel A. Ajila, Angad S. Gakhar & Chung‐Horng Lung

Authors
  1. Samuel A. Ajila
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  2. Angad S. Gakhar
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  3. Chung‐Horng Lung
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel A. Ajila.

Appendices

Appendix A1—CC2ASPECT user interface

figure e

1.1 A2—an example of a code clone in PENTRIS

figure f

Appendix B

Tables containing the execution times data. All execution time values are in milliseconds.

Table 9 Execution times of SWEF software system in both experiment rounds
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Table 10 Execution times of PENTRIS software system in both experiment rounds
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Ajila, S.A., Gakhar, A.S. & Lung, C. Aspectualization of code clones—an algorithmic approach. Inf Syst Front 16, 835–851 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-013-9428-7

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