Think maybe you do CTRL-V code too much? Here's a Visual Studio feature to help you (find those code clones, that is...)

JasonSingh - Problems with Copy Pasting Code - And Modifying Slightly... Then How To Go Back And Fix It All Up Afterwards.

As developers, we often find ourselves under a lot of pressure to crank out code and copy then paste it somewhere else in a solution and make a slight modification here and there and get the product out the door. It's a frequent occurrence and hence the number of lines of code is not a great measure of quality code. There's nothing wrong if it gets the code out the door, however, when we have time we can go back and fix this.

What happens, if we don't and some code has been copied and pasted in different renditions and a bug comes up in one of the scenarios? We can fix it in the one instance, but that bug may also be applicable in all or some the copy/paste instances of code.

Considering the frequency of these scenarios, we've introduced Code Clone Analysis in Visual Studio 2012. What is does it search a solution and looks for similar code.

From the Analyze menu in Visual Studio 2012, we select "Analyze Solution for Code Clones"

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So, when you get a chance, like a couple of minutes, check out the tool and see how much copying and pasting has been going on in your team ;)

Speaking of CTRL-V love, I thought this post a great kind of counter-point to my last post, If CTRL-V is your coding friend (admitted or not), Check out Paste FixR.

So maybe feel you do paste in a little much? Or that maybe a team member does? Or you both do? This Visual Studio feature will help you find and fix those [code] clones.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
If CTRL-V is your coding friend (admitted or not), Check out Paste FixR