Similarity-based analyses on software applications: A systematic literature review

In empirical studies on processes, practices, and techniques of software engineering, automation and machine learning are gaining popularity. In order to extract knowledge from existing software projects, a sort of similarity analysis is often performed using different methodologies, data and metadata. This systematic literature review focuses therefore on existing approaches of similarity-, categorization-and relevance-based analysis on software applications. In total, 136 relevant publications and patents were identified between 2002 and 2019 according to the established inclusion and exclusion criteria, which perform a calculation of software similarity in general or to support certain software engineering phases. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.