A Prototype for Software Refactoring Recommendation System

Abstract

Software refactoring is used to reduce the costs and risks of software evolution. Automated software refactoring tools can reduce risks caused by manual refactoring, improve efficiency, and reduce difficulties of software refactoring. Researchers have made great efforts to research how to implement and improve automated software refactoring tools. However, results of automated refactoring tools often deviate from the intentions of the implementer. To this end, in this paper, we proposed and implemented a prototype tool for a software refactoring recommendation system based on previous research. The tool provides users with an optimized software refactoring scheme and users realize refactoring intentions by interacting with the tool. The tool has been evaluated to be effective, especially for users who are inexperienced and nonEnglish speaking.