Automatic recommendation of move method refactorings using clustering ensembles

Abstract

In this paper, we are approaching the problem of automatic refactoring recommendation for object-oriented systems. An approach based on clustering ensembles is proposed, several heuristics to existing algorithms and to filtering and combining their results are discussed. Experimental validation of the proposed approach on an open source project is presented. The obtained preliminary results illustrate that the introduced approach could be successfully used to improve existing integrated development environments, providing developers with one more tool to reduce the complexity of their projects. The paper concludes with a discussion on the applicability of such automatic refactoring recommendation approaches to real-world software developed using common object-oriented techniques.