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    The Tale Behind Cyclomatic Complexity

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    morpheus0247
    The document discusses cyclomatic complexity (CC), a metric for measuring the complexity of code. It explains what CC measures, how it is calculated, and why it is important to keep CC low for code quality, testability, and maintainability. Keeping CC below 15 per code block and using design patterns can help reduce complexity.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    The Tale Behind Cyclomatic Complexity

    Uploaded by

    morpheus0247
    20 views4 pages
    The document discusses cyclomatic complexity (CC), a metric for measuring the complexity of code. It explains what CC measures, how it is calculated, and why it is important to keep CC low for code quality, testability, and maintainability. Keeping CC below 15 per code block and using design patterns can help reduce complexity.

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    The Tale Behind Cyclomatic Complexity

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    The document discusses cyclomatic complexity (CC), a metric for measuring the complexity of code. It explains what CC measures, how it is calculated, and why it is important to keep CC low for code quality, testability, and maintainability. Keeping CC below 15 per code block and using design patterns can help reduce complexity.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    20 views4 pages

    The Tale Behind Cyclomatic Complexity

    Uploaded by

    morpheus0247
    The document discusses cyclomatic complexity (CC), a metric for measuring the complexity of code. It explains what CC measures, how it is calculated, and why it is important to keep CC low for code quality, testability, and maintainability. Keeping CC below 15 per code block and using design patterns can help reduce complexity.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    ABAP Application Development: The tale

    behind cyclomatic complexity


    Posted by Hendrik Brandes Dec 26, 2011
    The cyclomatic complexity (CC) is one of the metrics which are very very old, but it still can have a big
    influence for development projects. I say "can" because I know that in the past not many developers and
    architects look after this metric.
    First a short introduction, what is CC and what is CC2 - which are the two in CodeInspector (CI).

    Introduction
    "The cyclomatic complexity measures the complexity of a program and is based on the control flow graph. It is
    a count for the number of linearly independent paths through the source code." (From the help of CI).
    Ok, the CC goes through a coding block and counts every time, the control flow has a new path at a specific
    decision point. A new path will be created due to a "IF", "ELSE", "CASE" and so on.
    The CC2 based on the CC and just adds another increment for every path, when a expression uses the
    operators "AND" or "OR".
    Short: The CC can be described by the following formula:
    M=b+1
    With 'b' is the number of decision points. A coding block without decision points ( for example just APPEND in
    control tables, create of ranges, structures... ) will have at least M = 1.

    What does a CC say?


    The CC describes the complexity of a special coding block. (Ok, nice try).
    Short, the CC tells you, how many test-cases you have to build, when you want to test your coding block. With
    this information, you have a information about how easy it is to maintain your coding block.
    Finally, the CC should be between 7 and 15 at each coding block.
    For my own projects or audits I use the following settings:

    Generated by Jive on 2014-11-07+01:00


    1

    ABAP Application Development: The tale behind cyclomatic complexity

    CC or CC2 and what about


    'CASE'
    Because the CC does not regard on operators in expressions, I use mainly the CC2. In the following, I just say
    CC meaning CC2.
    Second, some critics say, that the CC only regards on the hard-facts never regarding the human reading.
    The CASE-expression for example get's a very high count in the CC because every WHEN-switch will be
    counted.
    CASE l_day.
    WHEN '1'. l_name = 'Monday'.
    WHEN '2'. l_name = 'Tuesday'.
    WHEN '3'. l_name = 'Wednesday'.
    WHEN '4'. l_name = 'Thursday'.
    WHEN '5'. l_name = 'Friday'.
    WHEN '6'. l_name = 'Saturday'.
    WHEN '7'. l_name = 'Sunday'.
    ENDCASE.
    For you as developer it is very easy to read, what the statement does. But for the CC metric it is very heavy,
    because it will increment your block through 7 points.

    Generated by Jive on 2014-11-07+01:00


    2

    ABAP Application Development: The tale behind cyclomatic complexity

    In CI you can disable this check, but: look at the next topic and you will see, that there is no advantage if you
    disable this check.

    And now?
    With the value of CC, you can measure and ensure the quality and stability of your software. Even the
    enhanceability.
    1) For each value of CC you should have at least one test to ensure the correctness. E.g. use ABAPUnit and
    write so many tests as your CC counts.
    2) Have you thought about documentation? If you want to describe what your method do, and you have a CC
    of 15 for example, you will need to document at least 15 different states of your method! So, reduce your CC
    and you will get an easier software to maintain.
    3) When you a have a high CC, you should perform some refactoring with established design-patterns like
    factory, command, strategy, chain-of-responsibility ... and you will see, how easy it is to reduce the complexity
    by lift up your software to a higher quality degree. For example the CASE can very easy transformed into a
    command or strategy pattern. Think about UI-development, where you must handle a lot of events. When you
    take the CASE, you have a lot of code to maintain - use a single interface and call it dynamically will reduce
    your area to maintain and you can enhance your application very fast and stable.
    4) If you have reduced the CC, you will see, that you will have more reusable elements of your software and
    you can implement much easier new requirements.
    5) Try to think about easier implementations or tools. For example, if you have a very complex business case
    with a lot of decisions and operators, you should think about to reduce your complexity by introducing BRF+ as
    rules engine.
    880 Views Tags: abap

    Hendrik Brandes in response to Michelle Crapo on page 3


    Dec 29, 2011 11:57 AM
    Hello Michelle,
    tahnks for your comment.
    Yes, the CC is not only limited to ABAP Objects.
    Thus it is a very simple and easy to understand metric, it can bring a lot more quality to development tasks.
    I like the fact, that you can directly show the consequences of a high CC: More tests, more documentation and
    of course more code, that is not so easy to understand.
    Have fun,
    Hendrik
    Michelle Crapo
    Dec 29, 2011 11:26 AM
    It's something I'll have to try. It will show me rather quickly when I'm trying to develop too much in one "Code
    block". It looks like both structural and method use.

    Generated by Jive on 2014-11-07+01:00


    3

    ABAP Application Development: The tale behind cyclomatic complexity

    As I start using them more and more - this will really help me develop a better solution. (At least it seems like it
    would)
    Thank you!
    Michelle

    Generated by Jive on 2014-11-07+01:00


    4

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