Design pattern detection approaches: a systematic review of the literature

Nowadays, software engineers have a great tendency to use design patterns (DPs) because they are considered to have an important role in software engineering in the sense that they can make the understanding of nonentities easier. However, most of the systems have no document helping engineers recognize DPs from the codes. As a result, different approaches for design pattern detection have been suggested. The current paper reviews different available literature on design pattern detection and reports a number of different aspects of them such as data representation, type of design pattern, advantages and disadvantages for different approaches, quantitative results, etc. The current paper reviews research studies published between 2008 until 2019 and represents a list of datasets used for evaluations. The present investigation paper is not only to lay the ground for the selection of the optimal design patterns, but also hopes to guide the future studies through raising awareness about the potential defects in the previous researches.