Code Clones In Feature Oriented Software Product Lines
Sandro Schulze, Sven Apel and Christian Kästner
Abstract: Some limitations of object-oriented mechanisms are known to cause code
clones (e.g., extension using inheritance). Novel programming paradigms
such as feature-oriented programming (FOP) aim at alleviating these
limitations. However, it is an open issue whether FOP is really able to
avoid code clones or whether it even facilitates (FOP-specific) clones.
To address this issue, we conduct an empirical analysis on ten
feature-oriented software product lines with respect to code cloning. We
found that there is a considerable amount of clones in feature-oriented
software product lines and that a large fraction of these clones is
FOP-specific (i.e., caused by limitations of feature-oriented
mechanisms). Based on our results, we initiate a discussion on the
reasons for FOP-specific clones and on how to cope with them.