BOHR - A Tool for Identifying Atoms of Confusion in Java Code

• Wendell Mendes UFC
• Windson Viana UFC
• Lincoln Rocha UFC

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/vem.2021.17216

Abstract

The activity of understanding source code is fundamental in software development and maintenance. In this context, Atoms of Confusion (AC) emerge as the smallest portion of code capable of causing confusion to developers in this process. In this paper, BOHR - The Atoms of Confusion Hunter is presented, a tool that aims to: (i) assist the identification of AC in Java systems; (ii) provide reports on the prevalence of these AC; and (iii) provide an API for the development of new custom search engines for capturing new CA and also improvements in their identifications. In this first version, BOHR is able to detect 8 of the 13 types of AC pointed out by Langhout and Aniche. A preliminary evaluation of the BOHR was conducted on three real open source systems widely adopted by the Java software development community (Picasso, greenDAO and Socket.IO-client Java).  The initial results showed that BOHR was able to accurately detect the existing AC in these analyzed systems, correctly pointing out the AC snippets, as well as their type, class name it belonged to, and the line number of its occurrence. In total 105 CA were found, 37 in Picasso, 25 in greenDAO and 43 in the Java Socket.IO-client.

Keywords: Code Comprehension, Atoms of Confusion, Static Code Analysis

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