A Systematic Review of Code Smell Detection Approaches

Code smells are symptoms of design shortcomings in source code. There are various tools and approaches have been proposed for detecting code smells. A systematic review (PRISMA) has been performed based on the search of digital libraries that includes the publications in the last decade. 70 research papers are analyzed and provide an extensive overview of existing code smell detection approaches, current trends in code smells detection, potential areas of code smell detection using new technologies. These results will facilitate developers to understand their real needs when further research on code smell detection