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Automatic Motivation Detection for Extract Method Refactoring Operations

Title:

Automatic Motivation Detection for Extract Method Refactoring Operations

Aalizadeh, Mohammad Sadegh (2021) Automatic Motivation Detection for Extract Method Refactoring Operations. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

Refactoring is a common maintenance practice that enables developers to improve the internal
structure of a software system without altering its external behaviour. In this study
we propose a novel method to automatically detect 11 motivations driving the application
of EXTRACT METHOD refactoring operations. We conduct a large-scale study on
325 open-source Java repositories to automatically detect the motivations of 346K EXTRACT
METHOD refactoring instances. Previous studies have been merely based on surveys,
manual analysis of pull requests or commit-messages to detect the motivations of
developers. In this study we develop motivation detection rules to automatically extract
the developer motivations based on the context of a refactoring operation in the commit.
We find that the top four motivations for EXTRACT METHOD refactoring is to introduce
reusable methods, remove duplication, facilitate the implementation of new features and
bug fixes, and decompose long methods to improve their readability. There is an association
between the removal of duplication and the introduction of reusable methods in
the refactoring instances with multiple motivations. The findings of this study provide essential
feedback and insight for the research community, refactoring recommendation tool
builders, and project managers, to better understand why and how developers perform EXTRACT
METHOD refactorings and help them build refactoring tools tailored to the needs
and practices of developers.

Divisions:Concordia University > Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science > Computer Science and Software Engineering
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Aalizadeh, Mohammad Sadegh
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M. Comp. Sc.
Program:Computer Science
Date:1 August 2021
Thesis Supervisor(s):Tsantalis, Nikolaos
Keywords:Refactoring, Extract Method, Motivation
ID Code:988716
Deposited By: Mohammad Sadegh Aalizadeh
Deposited On:29 Nov 2021 16:16
Last Modified:29 Nov 2021 16:16

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