Clone removal: fact or fiction?

Abstract

Despite ongoing research in the field of code duplication, clone research has not yet investigated when and how developers remove clones. We think knowing how developers select candidates for removal and what techniques they use to eliminate duplication is essential to provide efficient clone management tools. Our empirical results show a significant discrepancy between clones detected by a state-of-the-art clone detector and duplication removed by developers. We believe it is necessary to have a better understanding of how developers approach and remove duplication to improve clone detectors as well as clone refactoring tools.