Code comments are a key software component containing information about the underlying implementation. Several studies have shown that code comments enhance the readability of the code. Nevertheless, not all the comments have the same goal and target audience. In this paper, we investigate how 14 diverse Java open and closed source software projects use code comments, with the aim of understanding their purpose. Through our analysis, we produce a taxonomy of source code comments; subsequently, we investigate how often each category occur by manually classifying more than 40,000 lines of code comments from the aforementioned projects. In addition, we investigate how to automatically classify code comments at line level into our taxonomy using machine learning; initial results are promising and suggest that an accurate classification is within reach, even when training the machine learner on projects different than the target one. Data and Materials [
 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2628361
 ].

/pdf/classifying-code-comments-in-java-software-systems-nzwvze2v63.pdf

Classifying code comments in Java software systems

Classifying code comments in Java software systems. Appendix

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Classifying code comments in Java software systems. Appendix

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper

Citations

Classifying code comments in Java software systems

Related Papers (5)

Small Java How To Program

Java: an object first approach

Object-Oriented Software Development: A Practical Guide

Data structures with Java

Applied C: An Introduction and More