In coding, duplicate code can be a sign of redundancy that may lead to maintenance challenges and errors. Removing duplicate lines (or refactoring them into reusable functions) not only cleans up your codebase but also helps in reducing bugs and improving readability.
What This Tool Does: It takes your code as input and looks for duplicate lines by stripping leading and trailing whitespace. If a line appears more than once, the tool reports that line along with the line numbers where it occurs.
Why It Matters: - Duplicate code can increase the size of your codebase unnecessarily. - Maintaining duplicate code can lead to inconsistent updates—when a bug is fixed in one instance, the other copies might remain unchanged. - Refactoring duplicate code into functions or modules can improve code organization and clarity.
Example: Suppose you input the following code:
# Calculate sum
def add(a, b):
return a + b
# Calculate difference
def subtract(a, b):
return a - b
# Calculate sum again (duplicate)
def sum_again(a, b):
return a + b
The tool might output:
'a + b' appears on lines: 3, 9
In this example, the duplicate occurrence of the expression a + b indicates redundant code, suggesting a potential opportunity to refactor by using a common function.
Use this tool to quickly identify duplicates in your code, making it easier to improve efficiency and reduce redundancy.