Frequent source code pattern mining

A data mining technique is used to find large frequently-occurring source code patterns from methods/APIs that can be used in code development. Simplified trees that represent the syntactic structure and type and method usage of a source code fragment, such as a method, are mined to find closed and maximal frequent subtrees which represent the largest frequently-occurring source code patterns or idioms associated with a particular type and method usage. These idioms are then used in an idiom web service and/or a code completion system to assist users in the development of source code programs.