Analysis of Coding Patterns over Software Versions

Abstract

A coding pattern is a sequence of method calls and control structures, which appears repeatedly in source code. In this paper, we have extracted coding patterns of each version of ten Java programs, and then explored the number of versions in which the coding patterns appear. This paper reports the characteristics of coding patterns over versions. While learning from coding patterns is expected to help developers to perform appropriate modifications and enhancements for the software, many coding patterns are unstable as similar to the result of clone genealogy research.