A Survey on Code Clone, Its Behavior and Applications

Code Clones are separate fragments of code that are very similar to a piece of code in matter or in its functionality. It is a type of Bad Smell that increases the project size and maintenance cost. However, the existing research elaborates several detection techniques. But the data from the available research is still insufficient to reach at some conclusion. The aim of this survey is to investigate all detection techniques and to analyze the Code Clone behavior and motivation behind the cloning. In this paper, 16 techniques for detecting the clones are summarized. The paper presents detailed analysis of 76 research papers. The research identified that there are various tools that are available for detecting Code Clones. We also investigate the approaches followed in the tools and further summarized the Code Clone patterns that are used for qualitative analysis. Overall, our findings indicate that the management of Clones should be started at the earliest.

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