Detect Rename function

[mkshiblu]

Background

• In JavaScript, a function's signature could be considered as its name only.
• If there are multiple functions in the same scope with the same name, regardless of the number of parameters, only the lastly declared function will be hoisted up i.e. considered by the environment.

For example, in the following code snippet function, the output would be

World
World

Since the lastly declared function A is hoisted up and called twice.

A(10, 20);
A(5);

function A(p1, p2) {
    alert('Hello')
} 

function A(p3) {
    alert('World')
}

• Thre is no method overloading like Java however, any function can be passed any number of arguments.

Technique

• Find added, modified and deleted files using git or a directory

• Compare function names in the same file and see if only the name has changed (Round 1)

• Detect change in other files ( Next Round)

• Compare body (next round)

• Compare refactoring in the body? (Next Round)

• In general, it's found that detecting lower level refactoring first than higher-level refactoring would allow more refactorings since empirical studies have found that lower-level refactorings are more prevalent than higher level ones.

[tsantalis]

It is important to collect some empirical data to see how commonly developers declare functions with the same name and different number of arguments in the same file.
Maybe it is considered a bad practice, and developers avoid it.
Normally, the signature of a function should be the function name + the number of arguments.