Code Smell Doctor

Detection Patterns

For detailed detection heuristics and refactoring techniques, see:

• references/bloaters.md - Size-related smells
• references/oo-abusers.md - OOP misuse patterns
• references/change-preventers.md - Rigidity smells
• references/dispensables.md - Unnecessary code
• references/couplers.md - Coupling issues

Output Format

For each smell found:

### [Smell Name] (Severity: High/Medium/Low)
**Location:** file:line or class/method name
**Problem:** Brief explanation of what's wrong
**Evidence:** Specific code indicators
**Fix:** Recommended refactoring technique(s)

Severity Guidelines

• High: Actively impedes development, causes bugs, or makes changes risky
• Medium: Makes code harder to understand or modify
• Low: Minor issue, fix when touching the code anyway

Common Detection Heuristics

Bloaters

• Method >15 lines or >3 levels of nesting → Long Method
• Class >300 lines or >10 fields → Large Class
• Repeated primitive groups (e.g., startDate, endDate) → Data Clumps

• 4 parameters → Long Parameter List

• Constants like USER_ADMIN = 1 → Primitive Obsession

OO Abusers

• switch on type codes → Switch Statements
• Subclass overrides parent methods to throw/no-op → Refused Bequest
• Fields only set in certain methods → Temporary Field
• Two classes with same behavior, different names → Alternative Classes

Change Preventers

• One class changes for unrelated reasons → Divergent Change
• One change touches many classes → Shotgun Surgery
• Creating FooX requires creating BarX → Parallel Inheritance

Dispensables

• Comments explaining what code does (not why) → Comments smell
• Copy-pasted code blocks → Duplicate Code
• Class with only getters/setters → Data Class
• Unreachable code, unused vars → Dead Code
• Class doing almost nothing → Lazy Class
• Abstract class with one implementation → Speculative Generality

Couplers

• Method uses other object's data more than own → Feature Envy
• Classes accessing each other's internals → Inappropriate Intimacy
• Chains like a.getB().getC().getD() → Message Chains
• Class only delegates, no real logic → Middle Man