Feature Envy Factor A Metric for Automatic Feature Envy Detection

Abstract

As a software system evolves, its design get deteriorated and the system becomes difficult to maintain. In order to improve such an internal quality, the system must be restructured without affecting its external behavior. The process involves detecting the design flaws (or code smells) and applying appropriate refactorings that could help remove such flaws. One of the design flaws in many object-oriented systems is placing members in the wrong class. This code smell is called Feature Envy and it is a sign of inappropriate coupling and cohesion. This work proposes a metric to detect Feature Envy code smell that can be removed by relocating the method. Our evaluation shows promising results as the overall system’s complexity is reduced after suggested Move Method refactorings are applied.