How Does Test Code Differ From Production Code in Terms of Refactoring? An Empirical Study
Refactoring is a widely applied practice for improving the internal structure of source code without altering its external behavior. Numerous researchers have proposed approaches to detect refactoring operations and investigated their impact on the code quality. However, these studies often focus on production code, paying little attention to test code. It is still unclear whether developers perform refactoring on test code in the same way or for the same purpose. To fill this gap, in this study, we first investigate the types and prevalence of refactoring applied in production and test code. We then examine whether these refactorings impact the code quality in a different way. Our results show that certain refactorings are much less common in the test code. We also find that while refactoring-related changes in production and/or test code improved readability, they focus on different aspects and have different purposes. These findings indicate the special attention needed for test code when analyzing refactorings.
Wed 10 SepDisplayed time zone: Auckland, Wellington change
13:30 - 15:00 | Session 3 - Debugging and RefactoringResearch Papers Track / Industry Track / Tool Demonstration Track / NIER Track at Case Room 3 260-055 Chair(s): Ashkan Sami Edinburgh Napier University | ||
13:30 15m | Boosting Redundancy-based Automated Program Repair by Fine-grained Pattern Mining Research Papers Track Jiajun Jiang Tianjin University, Fengjie Li Tianjin University, Zijie Zhao Tianjin University, Zhirui Ye Tianjin University, Mengjiao Liu Tianjin University, Bo Wang Beijing Jiaotong University, Hongyu Zhang Chongqing University, Junjie Chen Tianjin University | ||
13:45 10m | LadyBug: A GitHub Bot for UI-Enhanced Bug Localization in Mobile Apps Tool Demonstration Track Junayed Mahmud University of Central Florida, James Chen University of Toronto, Terry Achille University of Central Florida, Camilo Alvarez-Velez University of Central Florida, Darren Dean Bansil University of Central Florida, Patrick Ijieh University of Central Florida, Samar Karanch University of Central Florida, Nadeeshan De Silva William & Mary, Oscar Chaparro William & Mary, Andrian Marcus George Mason University, Kevin Moran University of Central Florida | ||
13:55 15m | Together We Are Better: LLM, IDE and Semantic Embedding to Assist Move Method Refactoring Research Papers Track Abhiram Bellur University of Colorado Boulder, Fraol Batole Tulane University, Malinda Dilhara Amazon Web Services, USA, Mohammed Raihan Ullah University of Colorado Boulder, Yaroslav Zharov JetBrains Research, Timofey Bryksin JetBrains Research, Kai Ishikawa NEC Corporation, Haifeng Chen NEC Laboratories America, Masaharu Morimoto NEC Corporation, Shota Motoura NEC Corporation, Takeo Hosomi NEC Corporation, Tien N. Nguyen University of Texas at Dallas, Hridesh Rajan Tulane University, Nikolaos Tsantalis Concordia University, Danny Dig University of Colorado Boulder, JetBrains Research | ||
14:10 10m | COB2PY - A Non-AI, Rule-Based COBOL to Python Translator Tool Demonstration Track Kowshik Reddy Challa Indian Institute of Technology, Tirupati, Sonith M V Indian Institute of Technology, Tirupati, Chiranjeevi B S Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Sridhar Chimalakonda Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati | ||
14:20 10m | How Does Test Code Differ From Production Code in Terms of Refactoring? An Empirical Study NIER Track Kosei Horikawa Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Yutaro Kashiwa Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Bin Lin Hangzhou Dianzi University, Kenji Fujiwara Nara Women’s University, Hajimu Iida Nara Institute of Science and Technology Pre-print | ||
14:30 10m | How Much Can a Behavior-Preserving Changeset Be Decomposed into Refactoring Operations? NIER Track Kota Someya Institute of Science Tokyo, Lei Chen Institute of Science Tokyo, Michael J. Decker Bowling Green State University, Shinpei Hayashi Institute of Science Tokyo DOI Pre-print | ||
14:40 15m | Governance Matters: Lessons from Restructuring the data.table OSS Project Industry Track Pedro Arantes RESHAPE LAB, Northern Arizona University, USA, Doris Amoakohene Northern Arizona University, Toby Hocking Université de Sherbrooke, Marco Gerosa Northern Arizona University, Igor Steinmacher RESHAPE LAB, Northern Arizona University, USA | ||