Detecting Essence Code Clones via Information Theoretic Analysis

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2502.19219v1
• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2025 15:23:40 GMT
• Title: Detecting Essence Code Clones via Information Theoretic Analysis
• Authors: Lida Zhao, Shihan Dou, Yutao Hu, Yueming Wu, Jiahui Wu, Chengwei Liu, Lyuye Zhang, Yi Liu, Jun Sun, Xuanjing Huang, Yang Liu,
• Abstract summary: Code cloning involves replicating code fragments to save time but often at the expense of software maintainability and quality.<n>"essence clones" are a complex subtype of Type-3 clones characterized by sharing critical logic despite different peripheral codes.<n>Traditional techniques often fail to detect essence clones due to their syntactic focus.<n>We introduce ECScan, a novel detection tool that leverages information theory to assess the semantic importance of code lines.
• Score: 28.696542467142983
• License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Abstract: Code cloning, a widespread practice in software development, involves replicating code fragments to save time but often at the expense of software maintainability and quality. In this paper, we address the specific challenge of detecting "essence clones", a complex subtype of Type-3 clones characterized by sharing critical logic despite different peripheral codes. Traditional techniques often fail to detect essence clones due to their syntactic focus. To overcome this limitation, we introduce ECScan, a novel detection tool that leverages information theory to assess the semantic importance of code lines. By assigning weights to each line based on its information content, ECScan emphasizes core logic over peripheral code differences. Our comprehensive evaluation across various real-world projects shows that ECScan significantly outperforms existing tools in detecting essence clones, achieving an average F1-score of 85%. It demonstrates robust performance across all clone types and offers exceptional scalability. This study advances clone detection by providing a practical tool for developers to enhance code quality and reduce maintenance burdens, emphasizing the semantic aspects of code through an innovative information-theoretic approach.

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