A Refactoring Suggestion Tool for removing Clones in Java Code

Code duplication is considered a widespread code smell, a symptom of bad code development practices or potential design issues. Code smells are also considered to be indicators of poor software maintainability. The refactoring cost associated with removing code clones can be very high, partly because of the number of different decisions that must be made regarding the kind of refactoring steps to apply. Here, we describe a tool that has been developed to suggest the best refactoring steps that could be taken to remove clones in Java code. Our approach is based on the classification of clones, in terms of their location in a class hierarchy, so that decisions can be made from a restricted set of refactorings that have been evaluated using multiple criteria