The term quality might mean different things to different people based on their context of operation and it’s tough to have universal definition for the same.My experiments with software development started over a decade ago & exploring the ways the helps to build & deliver good quality code.The quest towards Code Quality Metrics started with the above objectives.
The discussion around Useful Code Quality Metrics at Linkedin started two months ago. I am excited over the response around the internet to this thread & there are some excellent articles around subject.
In the recent past Agitar comes up with CRAP4J as a code quality metric by combining Cyclomatic Complexity and Code Coverage.
In the process, we do use Static Analysis and Dynamic Analysis to derive the above mentioned metrics. Some more good articles around Code Quality are here
I wish that the info around Code Quality is helpful for my blog readers
Happy Testing…
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I have been talking about Code Quality through Static Analysis for a while here, here & here. The quality for any application development must begin from it’s gross roots and the Application Code is one of it’s starting point to begin with.Static Analysis techniques help us to identify some metrics over the application code base
- Cyclomatic Complexity
- Application Design & Dependency Metrics
- Exception Handling
- Infinite Loops
- Dead Code
- Performance Issues
- Programming Language guidelines & best practices in their context
The above information will be useful and it’s easy to get the same via Test Framework with a single click.
Code Coverage along with a bunch of unit tests is one widely used technique to help regression testing for the dev & test teams.
Now it’s good to see that Agitar combines Code Coverage & Cyclomatic Complexity to derive risk metrics for Java Code Base. They call it as a code Change Risk Analyzer and Predictor (i.e. CRAP) for Java.
Though it’s a prototype and see how the industry receives the same, i see it as a good initiative on the code quality front and might be a metric going forward for white box testing.
Some useful links for CRAP4J
Update on Oct 23rd
Now we have a dedicated site for CRAP4J. This contains latest news, forum discussions and many more. I would say that this a good resource for Code Quality lovers & the good news is that they are designed to be open source tools.
Crap4j is a Java implementation of the CRAP (Change Risk Analysis and Predictions) software metric – a mildly offensive metric name to help protect you from truly offensive code.
The CRAP metric combines cyclomatic complexity and code coverage from automated tests (e.g. JUnit tests) to help you identify code that might be particularly difficult to understand, test, or maintain – the kind of code that makes developers say: “This is crap!” or, if they are stuck maintaining it, “Oh, crap!”.
The best way to learn more about CRAP and Crap4j is to check the various articles, newsgroups and blogs about them.
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Cyclomatic Complexity (CC) is a software metric (mostly code based metric) used to the number of independent path executions in the application. Introduced by Thomas McCabe in 1976, it measures the number of linearly-independent paths through a program module.
It helps the developers to determine the independent path executions and base line unit tests that they need to validate. Using this, the developers can assure that all the paths have been tested atleast once. It’s a great comfort for the developer and their respective managers.
It’s better to write JUnit Tests for all these linearly-independent paths and integrate it with any code coverage tool. These reports help to focus more on the un covered paths and improve the code coverage.
It also helps to evaluate the risk associated with the application. The following are the results published by SEI and they are being followed widely to determine the health of the code base.
Cyclomatic Complexity Risk Evaluation
1-10 A simple program, without much risk
11-20 More complex, moderate risk
21-50 Complex, high risk program
Greater than 50 Un testable program (very high risk)
Explore more at Cyclomatic Complexity in Software Technology Roadmap from SEI.
Further Reading on the topic
Use metrics to evaluate the risk early in the cycle & improve your test coverage.
Happy Testting …
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