This paper provides an extensive overview of existing research in the field of software refactoring. This research is compared and discussed based on a number of different criteria: the refactoring activities that are supported, the specific techniques and formalisms that are used for supporting these activities, the types of software artifacts that are being refactored, the important issues that need to be taken into account when building refactoring tool support, and the effect of refactoring on the software process. A running example is used throughout the paper to explain and illustrate the main concepts. Index Terms-Coding tools and techniques, programming environments/construction tools, restructuring, reverse engineering, and reengineering.

Abstract-In this paper, we show how automated support can be provided for identifying refactoring opportunities, e.g., when an application's design should be refactored and which refactoring(s) in particular should be applied. Such support is achieved by using the technique of logic meta programming to detect so-called bad smells and by defining a framework that uses this information to propose adequate refactorings. We report on some initial but promising experiments that were applied using the proposed techniques.

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