An analysis of programming language statement frequency in C, C++, and Java source code

Summary Statement frequency data can inform programming language research and provide a solid basis for frequency‐based code analysis. This paper presents an analysis of programming language statement frequency in a large corpus of C, C++, and Java source code, comprised of more than 54 million line...

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Veröffentlicht in:Software, practice & experience Jg. 45; H. 11; S. 1479 - 1495
Hauptverfasser: Zhu, Xiaoyan, Whitehead Jr, E. James, Sadowski, Caitlin, Song, Qinbao
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Bognor Regis Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2015
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Schlagworte:
Business
C (programming language)
Computer programming
Copying
Java (programming language)
metrics
Programming languages
Source code
statement frequency
ISSN:0038-0644, 1097-024X
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:Summary Statement frequency data can inform programming language research and provide a solid basis for frequency‐based code analysis. This paper presents an analysis of programming language statement frequency in a large corpus of C, C++, and Java source code, comprised of more than 54 million lines of code. Across these languages, the top four work‐performing statement types are Method/Function Call, Assignment, If, and Return. As compared to studies of Formula Translating System, Common Business Oriented Language and Programming Language One in the 1970s, the main change is the prevalence of method/function calls. Statement use frequency across languages is remarkably similar, and within each individual language, most statement types have a frequency distribution that occupies a small range. A more detailed examination of assignment and looping statement types shows that many assignments simply involve copying of data and that C++/Java use for statements more than C. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographie:ark:/67375/WNG-8VTGVS76-J
istex:385264AE30470630F138A2AF185C5A948EC9CFE5
ArticleID:SPE2298
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
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ISSN:0038-0644
1097-024X
DOI:10.1002/spe.2298