The Role of Refactorings in API Evolution

Dig, Danny; Johnson, Ralph

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/11009 Copy

Description

Title

The Role of Refactorings in API Evolution

Author(s)

• Dig, Danny
• Johnson, Ralph

Issue Date

2005-04

Keyword(s)

Software Engineering

Abstract

Frameworks and libraries change their APIs. Migrating an application to the new API is tedious and disrupts the development process. Although some tools and ideas [5, 14, 23, 26] have been proposed to solve the evolution of APIs, most updates are done manually. To better understand the requirements for migration tools we studied the API changes of three frameworks and one library. We discovered that the breaking changes are not random, but they tend to fall into particular categories. Over 80% of these changes are refactorings. This suggests that refactoring- based migration tools should be used to effectively update applications.

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/11009

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You are granted permission for the non-commercial reproduction, distribution, display, and performance of this technical report in any format, BUT this permission is only for a period of 45 (forty-five) days from the most recent time that you verified that this technical report is still available from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Computer Science Department under terms that include this permission. All other rights are reserved by the author(s).

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