Topic
Cyclomatic complexity
About: Cyclomatic complexity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 651 publications have been published within this topic receiving 14059 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
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Papers
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TL;DR: Several properties of the graph-theoretic complexity are proved which show, for example, that complexity is independent of physical size and complexity depends only on the decision structure of a program.
Abstract: This paper describes a graph-theoretic complexity measure and illustrates how it can be used to manage and control program complexity. The paper first explains how the graph-theory concepts apply and gives an intuitive explanation of the graph concepts in programming terms. The control graphs of several actual Fortran programs are then presented to illustrate the correlation between intuitive complexity and the graph-theoretic complexity. Several properties of the graph-theoretic complexity are then proved which show, for example, that complexity is independent of physical size (adding or subtracting functional statements leaves complexity unchanged) and complexity depends only on the decision structure of a program.
6,047 citations
28 May 2006
TL;DR: Using principal component analysis on the code metrics, this work built regression models that accurately predict the likelihood of post-release defects for new entities and can be generalized to arbitrary projects.
Abstract: What is it that makes software fail? In an empirical study of the post-release defect history of five Microsoft software systems, we found that failure-prone software entities are statistically correlated with code complexity measures. However, there is no single set of complexity metrics that could act as a universally best defect predictor. Using principal component analysis on the code metrics, we built regression models that accurately predict the likelihood of post-release defects for new entities. The approach can easily be generalized to arbitrary projects; in particular, predictors obtained from one project can also be significant for new, similar projects.
869 citations
10 May 2008
TL;DR: This paper proposes to use network analysis on dependency graphs of the entire system to identify central program units that are more likely to face defects and finds that the recall for models building from network measures is by 10% points higher than for models built from complexity metrics.
Abstract: In software development, resources for quality assurance are limited by time and by cost. In order to allocate resources effectively, managers need to rely on their experience backed by code complexity metrics. But often dependencies exist between various pieces of code over which managers may have little knowledge. These dependencies can be construed as a low level graph of the entire system. In this paper, we propose to use network analysis on these dependency graphs. This allows managers to identify central program units that are more likely to face defects. In our evaluation on Windows Server 2003, we found that the recall for models built from network measures is by 10% points higher than for models built from complexity metrics. In addition, network measures could identify 60% of the binaries that the Windows developers considered as critical-twice as many as identified by complexity metrics.
644 citations
1 Aug 1996
TL;DR: This document summarizes current capabilities, research and operational priorities, and plans for further studies that were established at the 2015 USGS workshop on quantitative hazard assessments of earthquake-triggered landsliding and liquefaction in the Central American region.
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443 citations
TL;DR: A simple transformation of the metric is investigated whereby the cyclomatic complexity is divided by the size of the system in source statements, thereby determining a complexity density ratio, which is demonstrated to be a useful predictor of software maintenance productivity on a small pilot sample of maintenance projects.
Abstract: A study of the relationship between the cyclomatic complexity metric (T. McCabe, 1976) and software maintenance productivity, given that a metric that measures complexity should prove to be a useful predictor of maintenance costs, is reported. The cyclomatic complexity metric is a measure of the maximum number of linearly independent circuits in a program control graph. The current research validates previously raised concerns about the metric on a new data set. However, a simple transformation of the metric is investigated whereby the cyclomatic complexity is divided by the size of the system in source statements. thereby determining a complexity density ratio. This complexity density ratio is demonstrated to be a useful predictor of software maintenance productivity on a small pilot sample of maintenance projects. >
256 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 6 |
| 2024 | 14 |
| 2023 | 16 |
| 2022 | 24 |
| 2021 | 34 |
| 2020 | 42 |