Cloning in Max/MSP Patches

Max/MSP is widely used for developing applications in music and art yet less attention has been given to supporting developers working in this language than for more traditional languages such as Java.Technologies such as code-completion, reuse support, and refactoring may be helpful but are largely unexplored.Such methods rely on detecting similarities between language elements.This paper presents a method for detecting similarities between Max/MSP patches (and subpatches) based on clone detection techniques.The method has been implemented and a proof-of-concept evaluation has been undertaken by applying it to the set of Max tutorial patches supplied with Max/MSP 5.The results show that significant cloning takes place both within and outwith an individual patch and that, as clone constraints are relaxed, the number of clone pairs increases.