Nicholas Chen
ABSTRACT
Many automated refactoring tools only work with one programming language. However, most complex programs rely on polyglot programming --- entailing the use of different programming languages, libraries and frameworks. While finding a general solution for extending refactoring across multiple languages is hard, it is simple and possible to support automated refactorings for some common cases that programmers already encounter in their programs today. Supporting those common cases is essential in encouraging programmers to make changes that would increase the understandability and maintainability of their programs.
This paper is a step toward encouraging tool developers to think about supporting multi-language refactorings. We present our tool for supporting multi-language refactorings from studying the interactions between Java and XML configuration files. Our tool extends Rename Refactoring support across three different popular Java frameworks: Struts, Hibernate and Spring.
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Index Terms
- Toward refactoring in a polyglot world: extending automated refactoring support across Java and XML
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