Model-Based Source Code Refactoring with Interaction and Visual Cues
This page is provided as a supplementary material for the article: Model-Based Source Code Refactoring with Interaction and Visual. More specifically, we provide the results as a downloadable JSON file and also provide Java codes for all Java applications used in the paper.
Refactoring source code involves the developer in a myriad of program detail that can obscure the design changes that they actually wish to bring about. On the other hand, refactoring a UML model of the code makes it easier to focus on the program design, but the burdensome task of applying the refactorings to the source code is left to the developer.
To attempt to obtain the advantages of both approaches, we propose a multi-level, interactive approach to refactoring based on two tools. (1) Design-Imp enables the developer to use interactive search-based design exploration to create a UML-based desired design from an initial design extracted from the source code. It also provides visual cues to improve developer comprehension during the design-level refactoring process, and help the developer to discern between promising and poor refactoring solutions. (2) Code-Imp then refactors the original source so that it has the same functional behaviour as the original program, and a design close to the one produced in the design exploration phase, i.e. a design that has been confirmed as `desirable' by the developer.
We evaluated our approach involving interaction and visual cues with industrial developers refactoring three Java projects, comparing it with an approach using interaction without visual cues and a fully-automated approach. The results show that our approach yields refactoring sequences that are more acceptable both to the individual developer and to a set of expert refactoring evaluators. Furthermore, our approach removed more code smells and was evaluated very positively by the experiment participants.
Main features of our interactive refactoring recommendation tool
The results as JSON file can be downloaded in this Link.
The questions in pre- and post-study questionnaire can be downloaded in this link.
The pre-study questionnaire results can be downloaded in this link.
The post-study questionnaire results can be downloaded in this link.
The Java codes for QMS and ATM applications can be downloaded in through these links (QMS and ATM). The source code of RefDetect is not currently publicly available.
