An efficient new multi-language clone detection approach from large source code

Abstract

In software engineering, the concept of code reuse is very common. Code reuse is the concept of copying and pasting the code in multiple places in the same software or different software without modification. This practice may reduce software maintainability and give rise to serious maintenance problems. In the last few decades numerous code clone detection techniques and tools have been proposed for capturing duplicated redundant code. Each of these techniques attempts to find out the duplicated code, which is also known as software clone. These techniques include Kclone, CP-Miner, CC-Finder, CReN etc. The objective of those researches is the exploration of various clone detection techniques and tools proposed so far. In this study, we propose an efficient clone detection technique which is used to detect clones in various programming languages. We have endeavored to improve performance and overcome the key problem of detecting clones in only one language. The proposed technique has been evaluated using two-dimensional array which has exhibited a faster method of storing and identification of clones in source code. We are also working on some of its future directions including the removal of the clones detected from the source code.