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Automated pattern-directed refactoring for complex conditional statements

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Abstract

Complex conditional statement is one of the bad code smells, which affects the quality of the code and design of software. In the proposed approach, two commonly-used design patterns for handling complex conditional statements are selected, and they are the factory method pattern and the strategy pattern. Two pattern-directed refactoring approaches based on the two design patterns are proposed. Each approach contains a refactoring opportunities identification algorithm and an automated refactoring algorithm. After parsing the abstract syntax tree generated from source code, the refactoring opportunities are identified effectively and automatically. Then, for candidate code, refactoring algorithms are executed automatically, which are used to simplify or remove complex conditional statements. By empirical analysis and quality assessment, the code after refactoring has better maintainability and extensibility, and the proposed approach for automated pattern-directed refactoring succeeds to reduce code size and complexity of classes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Wei Liu  (刘伟) & Zhi-gang Hu  (胡志刚)

  2. School of Software, Central South University, Changsha, 410075, China

    Zhi-gang Hu  (胡志刚), Hong-tao Liu  (刘宏韬) & Liu Yang  (杨柳)

Authors
  1. Wei Liu  (刘伟)
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  2. Zhi-gang Hu  (胡志刚)
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  3. Hong-tao Liu  (刘宏韬)
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  4. Liu Yang  (杨柳)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhi-gang Hu  (胡志刚).

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Liu, W., Hu, Zg., Liu, Ht. et al. Automated pattern-directed refactoring for complex conditional statements. J. Cent. South Univ. 21, 1935–1945 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-014-2140-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-014-2140-z

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