A study on code clone evolution analysis

Abstract

It is believed that identical or similar code fragments in source code, also known as code clones, result from copy-paste activity of programming, increase the complexity of software maintenance. Information provided by single code clone cannot effectively represent the features of clone maintenance, so it needs to be extracted from different perspective of clone evolution. Analysis of clone evolution provides strong support to improve the maintainability. In this paper, we present various methods that researchers have used to study clone evolution and summarize the advantages and disadvantages of relevant research on clone evolution. Finally we also summarize and prospect the development trend of clone evolution analysis.