Imprecisions Diagnostic in Source Code Deltas

Abstract

Beyond a practical use in code review, source code change detection (SCCD) is an important component of many mining software repositories (MSR) approaches. As such, any error or imprecision in the detection may result in a wrong conclusion while mining repositories. We identified, analyzed, and characterized impressions in GumTree, which is the most advanced algorithm for SCCD. After analyzing its detection accuracy over a curated corpus of 107 C# projects, we diagnosed several imprecisions. Many of our findings confirm that a more language-aware perspective of GumTree can be helpful in reporting more precise changes.