CLEAR: Class Level Software Refactoring Using Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract

The original design of a software system is rarely prepared for every new requirement. Software systems should be updated frequently, which is usually accompanied by the decline in software modularity and quality. Although many approaches have been proposed to improve the quality of software, a majority of them are guided by metrics defined on the local properties of software. In this article, we propose to use a global metric borrowed from the network science to detect the moving method refactoring. First, our approach uses a bipartite network to represent classes, features (i.e., methods and fields), and their dependencies. Second, a new metric is introduced to quantify the modularity of a software system as a whole. Finally, a crossover-only evolutionary algorithm that uses the metric as its fitness function is introduced to optimize the class structure of a software system and detect the methods that should be moved. Empirical results on the benchmark Java projects show that our approach can find meaningful methods that should be moved with a high stability. The advantages of our approach are illustrated in comparison with some other approaches, specifically one refactoring approach, namely search-based refactoring approach (SBRA), and two community detection algorithms, namely a graph theoretic clustering algorithm (MCODE) and a fast algorithm for community detection (FG). Our approach provides a new way to do refactoring from the perspective of software structure.