Code Smells, Micro Patterns and their Relations

Code smells are an example of a pattern-oriented trend applied to software evolution. Due to their abstract and informal nature, the detection process requires support from lower-level indicators like individual metric values, history of code changes, knowledge about program structure or results of program execution. We examine how the presence of program structures, called micro patterns, is correlated with the code smells and how micro patterns can be exploited for the purpose of smell detection.