ClonePacker: A tool for clone set visualization

Abstract

Programmers often copy and paste code fragments when they would like to reuse them. Although copy-and-paste operations enable programmers to realize rapid developments of software systems, it makes code clones. Some clones have negative impacts on software developments. For example, if we modify a code fragment, we have to check whether its clones need the same modification. In this case, programmers often use tools that take a code fragment as input and take its clones as output. However, when programmers use such existing tools, programmers have to open a number of source code and move up/down a scroll bar for browsing the detected clones. In order to reduce the cost of browsing the detected clones, we developed a tool that visualizes clones by using Circle Packing, named ClonePacker. As a result of an experiment with participants, we confirmed that participants using ClonePacker reported the locations of clones faster than an existing tool.