Earlier this week, I came across a really cool tool for checking and detecting duplicated code throughout a group of files.

Simian, although written in Java, works very well for C# code and it is lighting fast. Output can be directed to the console, or to a file (in either plain, XML or EMacs formats). Included in the package is a basic stylesheet so that you can view your XML in a more meaningful way.

Current supported languages include:

• Java
• C#
• C++
• Javascript (ECMAScript)
• COBOL, ABAP
• Ruby
• JSP (partial)
• HTML (partial)
• XML (partial)
• Visual Basic (partial)

Simian has a free license available for non-commercial and open source user. If you need it in another capacity, different licenses are available, including a personal license for $29. What a small price to pay for the benefits of time saved performing maintenance, debugging and refactoring.