An Empirical Study on Code Smells Co-occurrences in Android Applications

Oumayma Hamdi, Ali Ouni, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    5 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Android applications (apps) evolve quickly to meet users requirements, fix bugs or adapt to technological changes. Such changes can lead to the presence of code smells-symptoms of poor design and/or implementation choices that may hinder the project maintenance and evolution. Previous research studied the characteristics of traditional object-oriented (OO) code smells affecting source code files in desktop software systems, and advocated that the interaction and co-presence of code smells reduce the ability of developers to understand and maintain source code. However, little knowledge is available on emerging categories of Android-specific code smells and their interactions, i.e., co-occurences, with traditional OO smells, in the context of Android apps. To provide a broader understanding of this phenomenon, we conduct an empirical study on 1,923 open source Android apps taking into account 15 types of Android-specific and 10 types of traditional OO code smells. Our results show that the co-occurrence phenomenon is indeed prevalent in Android apps and several smell types have strong associations. Developers need to be aware of this phenomenon and consider detecting and eliminating both traditional and Android smells separately, using dedicated tools.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings - 2021 36th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops, ASEW 2021
    Pages26-33
    Number of pages8
    ISBN (Electronic)9781665435833
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2021
    Event36th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops, ASEW 2021 - Virtual, Online, Australia
    Duration: 15 Nov 202119 Nov 2021

    Publication series

    NameProceedings - 2021 36th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops, ASEW 2021

    Conference

    Conference36th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops, ASEW 2021
    Country/TerritoryAustralia
    CityVirtual, Online
    Period15/11/2119/11/21

    Keywords

    • Android apps
    • Android smells
    • Association rule mining
    • Co-occurence
    • Code smells

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