Investigating the Maintenance Implications of the Replication of Code

This paper describes an investigation into the use of code replication within legacy software systems. Two cases of replication are investigated. These are replication with an individual program and replication of an entire or part of a program across a program suite. For each of the cases an example is given from code used within the commercial sector. The instances of replication are then investigated and the implication of their occurrences within the code on the maintenance process are considered. The reasons why code replication is not a form of software reuse are discussed. Finally this paper investigates whether, with reengineering, areas of high usage of code replication are potential candidates for reuse.