# Building a tool for refactoring (renaming namespaces / moving functions)
**URL:** https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216
**Category:** General Questions
**Created:** [December 16, 2019, 7:56am UTC](https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216 "2019-12-16T07:56:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@witek](https://clojureverse.org/u/witek)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2019, 7:56am UTC](https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216/1 "2019-12-16T07:56:01Z")
Since there is no IDE which can rename namespaces and move functions while updating references in multiple projects for clj+cljc+cljs, I would like to try building this.
I have identified these problems so far:
- Load multiple source directories
- Parse clj+cljc+cljs while keeping comments, whitespace, formating
- Resolve and index all references
- Determine the correct destination folder for any given (new) namespace
- Determine the correct destination position in a file for any moved-in function
- Create data which describes all the actions so it can be displayed (and modified) before execution
I hope `rewrite-clj` works on all file types and I can utilize it. This is where I would start investigating.
Do you have any suggestions what else to think about before starting to tackle this problem? Or which existing libraries would help? Thank you.
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### Author:  [@borkdude](https://clojureverse.org/u/borkdude)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2019, 8:30am UTC](https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216/2 "2019-12-16T08:30:32Z")
Going into the #rewrite-clj channel on Clojurians Slack would be good if you want to know more about that. There is an in-progress project called rewrite-cljc which will combine rewrite-clj and rewrite-cljs into one project, so it can be called from both Clojure and ClojureScript.
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### Author:  [@teodorlu](https://clojureverse.org/u/teodorlu)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2019, 8:31am UTC](https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216/3 "2019-12-16T08:31:07Z")
I don’t have any suggestions, but I appreciate the effort!
The ability to do advanced refactoring is one of the aspects of Java / C# I really appreciate, and I’ve missed being able to do that in Clojure. Note that I haven’t really put a lot of effort into understanding what CIDER already can do with regards to refactoring.
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### Author:  [@system](https://clojureverse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://clojureverse.org/t/building-a-tool-for-refactoring-renaming-namespaces-moving-functions/5216/4 "2020-06-15T20:31:08Z")
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