System and method for identifying opportunities for refactoring in an object-oriented program

摘要

There is described a technique for rearranging entities in an object oriented program. The proposed technique includes computing a property set for an entity, in a set of entities belonging to classes in said object-oriented program. The next step comprises identifying an entity having a maximum cardinality of the computed property set. From the set of entities, all such entities are identified that satisfy a condition that the ratio of the number of elements in the property set of the identified entity that are in common with the property set of said entity having maximum cardinality to the number of elements in the property set of the identified entity that are not in common with the property set of said entity having maximum cardinality is greater than or equal to a threshold value. A sub-group is formed comprising said entity having maximum cardinality of the computed property along with any identified entity that satisfies said condition.