Code Clone

Definitions

1. A duplicated or near-duplicated block of code that appears in multiple places, often because logic was copied and modified instead of extracted or reused properly. Code clones increase maintenance cost because bugs and behavior changes must be fixed consistently across all copies.

   In plain English: A copied chunk of code that appears in multiple places.

   Example: "The parser bug existed in four services because the same code clone had been copied years earlier and then drifted silently across repos."

Related Terms

• Linting
• Code Smell
• DRY
• Static Analysis
• Tidy
• Code Gardening
• WET
• Code Cleanup
• Code Migration
• Code Quality Gate