bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee X5153) (06/28/88)
Request for Help:
I've recently been reading DeMarco's "Controlling Software Projects"
(Yourdon Press 1982), and am now interested in adding some metrics
to our project. However, his metrics are designed for EDP projects
written in COBOL. We have an interactive system written in C and
running UNIX. Can any net readers offer advice about or tools for
measuring the following:
Code Volume
Past attemps to measure the size of code have used
number of lines. However, this appears to be pretty
inaccurate. DeMarco suggests that counting the
number of operands and operators and multiply by
the log(base 2) of the number of unique identifiers
is a much more accurate measure. Anyone have a
program to parse C code and do this? What about
including .h files and macros?
Code Quality
DeMarco suggests analysing code by counting the
number of entry and exit points from routines,
looking for GOTOs, etc. Anyone have a program
that could parse C code and at least give
some indication of relative complexity of
different modules and perhaps hightlight
areas of code that might profit from a code
code review?
I'm looking both for information explaining how to judge the size and
quality of C code, and also for any tools that will automatically
perform some analysis. Send me email, and if I get any good info I'll
summarize to the net. Thanks in advance.
--
Rob Bradlee w:(617)-658-5600 X5153 h:(617)-944-5595
Compugraphic Corp. ...!{ima,ulowell,ism780c}!cg-atla!bradlee
200 Ballardvale St.
Wilmington, Mass. 01887 The Nordic Way: Ski till it hurts!twb@hoqax.UUCP (T.W. Beattie) (06/30/88)
In article <4820@cg-atla.UUCP>, bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee X5153) writes: > Request for Help: > I'm looking both for information explaining how to judge the size and > quality of C code, and also for any tools that will automatically > perform some analysis. Earlier this year CACM had an excellent article about an NPATH complexity metric. It suggests that the complexity of the code (levels of nesting, etc) are a useful measure of the quality of the code and a particularly good measure of the maintainability of the code. I particularly like this metric because it seems difficult to make the code worse by decreasing the metric. Many other metrics encourage bad coding practices. Tombo.
warren@psu-cs.UUCP (Warren Harrison) (07/02/88)
> Request for Help: > > I've recently been reading DeMarco's "Controlling Software Projects" > (Yourdon Press 1982), and am now interested in adding some metrics > to our project. However, his metrics are designed for EDP projects > written in COBOL. We have an interactive system written in C and > running UNIX. Can any net readers offer advice about or tools for > measuring the following: > > Code Volume > Past attemps to measure the size of code have used > number of lines. However, this appears to be pretty > inaccurate. DeMarco suggests that counting the > number of operands and operators and multiply by > the log(base 2) of the number of unique identifiers > is a much more accurate measure. Anyone have a > program to parse C code and do this? What about > including .h files and macros? > > Code Quality > DeMarco suggests analysing code by counting the > number of entry and exit points from routines, > looking for GOTOs, etc. Anyone have a program > that could parse C code and at least give > some indication of relative complexity of > different modules and perhaps hightlight > areas of code that might profit from a code > code review? > > > I'm looking both for information explaining how to judge the size and > quality of C code, and also for any tools that will automatically > perform some analysis. Send me email, and if I get any good info I'll > summarize to the net. Thanks in advance. > > > -- > Rob Bradlee w:(617)-658-5600 X5153 h:(617)-944-5595 > Compugraphic Corp. ...!{ima,ulowell,ism780c}!cg-atla!bradlee > 200 Ballardvale St. > Wilmington, Mass. 01887 The Nordic Way: Ski till it hurts! Look into PC-METRIC from SET Laboratories [503-289-4758]. Does Halsteads Software Science (the operator/operand strategy you refer to) and Cyclomatic Complexity. Versions for C, Pascal, Modula-2, COBOL, FORTRAN, etc. It was reviewed in this month's Computer magazine from IEEE. --- I admit I work for them sometimes ... but I'm just answering the guy's question ---
cl@datlog.co.uk (Charles Lambert) (07/06/88)
In article <4820@cg-atla.UUCP> bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee X5153) writes: >Request for Help: > >I'm looking both for information explaining how to judge the size and >quality of C code, and also for any tools that will automatically >perform some analysis. Send me email, and if I get any good info I'll >summarize to the net. Thanks in advance. Can we keep this discussion in the open, please? I know it gets hashed over fairly regularly but it is important and perspectives are changing all the time. At the moment, there are several initiatives in the UK to promote better engineering practices in software; we cannot engineer what we cannot measure, so any discussion of methods is useful. Charlie
bdr@neti1.uucp (Brian Renaud) (07/13/88)
In article <816@dlhpedg.co.uk>, cl@datlog.co.uk (Charles Lambert) writes: > In article <4820@cg-atla.UUCP> bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee X5153) writes: > >Request for Help: > > > >I'm looking both for information explaining how to judge the size and > >quality of C code, and also for any tools that will automatically > >perform some analysis. Send me email, and if I get any good info I'll I have some programs (shell/awk/C, etc.) which provide some metrics for C programs. As I remember, they consist of: line counter - print actual lines of code (useful for COCOMO modeling) as well as blank lines, number of comments, comment lines halstead - provide various software science metrics, based on Halstead's work mccabe - program complexity analyzer, based on McCabe, etc. I also have some rather arcane scripts which will run these tools on a specified set of programs and produce some flat files containing only the metrics I have found to be statistically significant. (You may find that these metrics are not right for you, I only analyzed two 30K DSI projects.) If you would like these let me know. Email is the best way to reach me, since my access to this news feed is rather shaky. Brian -- Brian Renaud bdr%huron.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu umix!huron!bdr -- Brian Renaud bdr%huron.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu Huron Systems {umix,neti2}!huron!bdr