Patricia Deshane

Managing Copy-and-paste Programming Patricia Deshane

Programmers often copy and paste source code in order to reuse an existing solution in the completion of a current task. Copying and pasting results in code clones (similar code fragments) throughout a code base, which need to be properly maintained over time. Forgetting the cloning information and correspondence relationships within a piece of code can be problematic for the software maintainer. Furthermore, inconsistent editing to clones can introduce undetected bugs, decreasing the quality of the software. This dissertation presents a suite of software tools, Eclipse plug-ins named CnP, that aid the programmer during copy, paste, and modify programming. The purpose is to provide tool support throughout a clone's entire lifecycle, from its creation to its removal from the system. More than just traditional clone detection and removal, these clone tracking tools have a particular focus on clone editing. CReN and LexId help with consistent identifier and substring renaming within clones, and CSeR visualizes user edits within a clone for better clone comparison. A user study was conducted with analysis in terms of task completion time, solution correctness, and method of completion.