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ICPC 2022
Mon 16 - Tue 17 May 2022
co-located with ICSE 2022

Blockchain technology is becoming increasingly popular, and smart contracts (i.e., programs that run on top of the blockchain) represent a crucial element of this technology. In particular, smart contracts running on Ethereum (i.e., one of the most popular blockchain platforms) are often developed with Solidity, and their deployment and execution consume gas (i.e., a fee compensating the computing resources required). Smart contract development frequently involves code reuse, but poor readable smart contracts could hinder their reuse. However, writing readable smart contracts is challenging, since practices for improving the readability could also be in contrast with optimization strategies for reducing gas consumption. This paper aims at better understanding (i) the readability aspects for which traditional software and smart contracts differ, and (ii) the specific smart contract readability features exhibiting significant relationships with gas consumption. We leverage a set of metrics that previous research has proven correlated with code readability. In particular, we first compare the values of these metrics obtained for both Solidity smart contracts and traditional software systems (written in Java). Then, we investigate the correlations occurring between these metrics and gas consumption and between each pair of metrics. The results of our study highlight that smart contracts usually exhibit lower readability than traditional software for what concerns the number of parentheses, inline comments, and blank lines used. In addition, we found some readability metrics (such as the average length of identifiers and the average number of keywords) that significantly correlate with gas consumption. Our results can be used to draw up guidelines for the development of more readable smart contracts minimizing the impact on gas consumption.

Mon 16 May

Displayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change

08:40 - 09:30
Session 6: Measuring and Improving QualityResearch / Journal First / Tool Demonstration at ICPC room
Chair(s): Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer Rochester Institute of Technology
08:40
7m
Talk
An Approach to Automatically Assess Method Names
Research
Reem S. Alsuhaibani Kent State University, Christian D. Newman Rochester Institute of Technology, Michael J. Decker Bowling Green State University, Michael L. Collard The University of Akron, Jonathan I. Maletic Kent State University
DOI Pre-print Media Attached
08:47
7m
Talk
An Empirical Investigation on the Trade-off between Smart Contract Readability and Gas Consumption
Research
Anna Vacca University of Sannio, Italy, Michele Fredella University of Sannio, Italy, Andrea Di Sorbo University of Sannio, Corrado A. Visaggio University of Sannio, Italy, Gerardo Canfora University of Sannio
Pre-print Media Attached
08:54
4m
Talk
CodePanorama: a language agnostic tool for visual code inspection
Tool Demonstration
Marc Etter OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, Farhad Mehta University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil, Switzerland
Media Attached File Attached
08:58
7m
Talk
Simple or Complex? Together for a More Accurate Just-In-Time Defect Predictor
Research
Xin Zhou , DongGyun Han Singapore Management University, David Lo Singapore Management University
Media Attached File Attached
09:05
7m
Talk
SAVALAN: Multi Objective and Homogeneous Method for Software Modules Clustering
Journal First
Bahman Arasteh Istinye University, Ahmad Fatolahzadeh Islamic Azad University, Farzad Kiani Istinye University
Pre-print Media Attached
09:12
18m
Live Q&A
Q&A-Paper Session 6
Research


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