Cyclomatic complexity density and software maintenance productivity

Author

Gill, Geoffrey K. ; Kemerer, Chris F.

Author_Institution

Sloan Sch. of Manage., MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

17

Issue

12

fYear

1991

fDate

12/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1284

Lastpage

1288

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

Keywords

software maintenance; software metrics; complexity density ratio; cyclomatic complexity metric; data set; linearly independent circuits; program control graph; software maintenance productivity; Circuits; Control systems; Productivity; Programming; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software measurement; Software metrics; Software performance; Software quality;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.106988

Filename

106988