Research in the area of source code analysis is concerned with the main and most essential artifact and building block in the software engineering process. Those building blocks include any fully executable description of the software system starting from very low level expressions such as machine code to high level descriptions of the system using high level languages or even graphical representations. It is the source code where we can find answers to many questions one might have about the software system. And it is also the source code that represents the essential truth about the behavior and execution of a system. Therefore, it is an important and crucial requisite to analyze, manipulate and learn from it. In this special issue, we have selected four excellent papers that look at different aspects of source code analysis.
Those articles have been selected from the accepted submissions to 16th IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM 2016). SCAM brings together researchers and practitioners to enhance theory, techniques, and applications that focus on the analysis and manipulation of source code. To be included in this special issue the papers have been substantially enhanced and revised and went through another thorough reviewing process undergoing multiple review rounds. The selected studies tackle topic such as change impact analysis, information retrieval in software engineering, comparison of mutation testing and evaluation of similarity analysis techniques and tools. A more detailed description of each of the four articles included can be found below.