Code clone cetector: a hybrid approach on Java Byte Code

Abstract

Code cloning copying of source code is a major problem for large, industrial systems. The main effect of cloning is that it risks the maintenance process. Cloning is the basic means of software reuse. Code cloning has been extensively used within the software development design community. Unofficial surveys carried out with large, long term software development projects suggest that 25-30% of the modules in this kind of system may have been cloned. The objective of this thesis is to understand and analyze the concept of software Cloning and its detection. Software cloning is a perception in which source code is duplicated. Code clones and its detection is one of the emerging and most dominant area of research in the field of software engineering. There exist a number of techniques to detect clone in software. The aim of this study will be given for acquiring and analyzing the concept of hybrid clone detection technique. An algorithm is devised for detecting duplicacy in the software by using hybrid software clone detection technique. This algorithm will first compute the required software metrics that provide sufficient information regarding the software application and then depending on software metrics matches the potential clone will be detected. It uses byte code to calculate the metrics of Java programs, instead of using any transformed representation. The reason of using byte code is that it is platform independent and represents the unified structure of the code. While detecting clones token based approach is applied on potential clones.