This paper proposes a new line-based approach for the detection of code clones using syntactic and lexical information. A customized compiler writes a source code representation that contains syntactic and lexical information. A new clone detection tool called LePalex reads the source code representation, and converts it to three types of code: first normal form, second normal form, and third normal form. The first normal form is used to detect the exact match of code clones. The second normal form is used to detect the syntactic match of code clones. The third normal form is used to check for syntactically correct segments of code clones. This paper demonstrates the advantage of this approach in achieving programming language independence using syntactic and lexical information. © 2010 IEEE.