Reusing reused code

Abstract

Although source code search systems are well known as being helpful to reuse source code, they have an issue that they often suggest larger code than what users actually need. This is because they suggest code based on the structure of programming languages such as files or classes. In this paper, we propose a new code search technique that considers past reuse. In the proposed technique, code are suggested at the unit of past reuse. The proposed technique detects reused code by using a fine-grained code clone detection technique. We conducted an experiment to compare the proposed technique with an existing technique. The result shows that the proposed technique helps more effectively to reuse code than the existing technique.