How Statical Analysis Can Help You Reduce Testing Process For Java Software

ICESCRUM
Application ICESCRUM2
Audit Report
2010-02-10
This document is a sample audit report produced automatically

from the results of the analysis of the application on the Kalistick platform.
It does not include any specific comments on the results.
Its purpose is to serve as a model to build custom reports,

it illustrates the ability of the platform to render a clear
and comprehensible quality of an application.
This document is confidential and is the property of Kalistick.

It should not be circulated or modified without permission.
Kalistick
13 av Albert Einstein
F-69100 Villeurbanne
+33 (0) 486 68 89 42
contact@kalistick.com
www.kalistick.com
Code audit of IceScrum2 application 2010-02-10
1 Executive Summary
The Quality Cockpit uses static analysis techniques: it does not execute the application, but analyzes the
elements that compose it (code, test results, architecture ...). The results are correlated, aggregated and
compared within the project context to identify risks related to quality. This report presents the results.
Variation compared to the objective
This chart compares the current status of the project

to the objectives set for each quality factor.
The goal, set at the initialization of the audit,

represents the importance of each quality factor. It
is intended to define the rules to follow during
development and the accepted tolerance.
Rate of overall non-compliance
This gauge shows the overall level of quality of the

application compared to its objective. It displays the
percentage of the application (source code)
regarded as not-compliant.
According to the adopted configuration, a rate

higher than 15% indicates the need for further
analysis.
Origin of non-compliances
This graph identifies the technical origin of

detected non-compliances, and the main areas of
improvement.
According to elements submitted for the analysis,

some quality domains may not be evaluated.
Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 2/58

Report Organization
This report presents the concepts of Quality Cockpit, the goal and the associated technical requirements
before proceeding with the summary results and detailed results for each technical area.
1 Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 2

2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
2.1 The Quality Cockpit............................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 The analytical........................................................................................................................................ 4
3 Quality objective........................................................................................................................................... 7
3.1 The quality profile ................................................................................................................................ 7
3.2 The technical requirements ................................................................................................................. 7
4 Summary of results..................................................................................................................................... 10
4.1 Project status ...................................................................................................................................... 10
4.2 Benchmarking ..................................................................................................................................... 13
4.3 Modeling application.......................................................................................................................... 17
5 Detailed results........................................................................................................................................... 19
5.1 Detail by quality factors...................................................................................................................... 19
5.2 Implementation .................................................................................................................................. 20
5.3 Structure ............................................................................................................................................. 24
5.4 Test ..................................................................................................................................................... 31
5.5 Architecture ........................................................................................................................................ 38
5.6 Duplication ......................................................................................................................................... 39
5.7 Documentation................................................................................................................................... 41
6 Action Plan.................................................................................................................................................. 43
7 Glossary ...................................................................................................................................................... 45
8 Annex .......................................................................................................................................................... 47
8.1 Cyclomatic complexity........................................................................................................................ 47
8.2 The coupling ....................................................................................................................................... 49
8.3 TRI and TEI .......................................................................................................................................... 50
8.4 Technical Requirements ..................................................................................................................... 52

2 Introduction
2.1 The Quality Cockpit

This audit is based on an industrialized process of code analysis. This industrialization ensures reliable results
and easily comparable with the results of other audits.
The analysis process is based on the "Quality Cockpit" platform, available through SaaS1 model
(https://cockpit.kalistick.com). This platform has the advantage of providing a knowledge base unique in that
it centralizes the results from statistical analysis of millions code lines, enriched continuously with new
analyses. It allows performing comparative analysis with other similar projects.
2.2 The analytical

The analysis focuses on the code of the application (source code and binary code), for Java (JEE) or C# (. Net)
technologies. It is a static analysis (without runtime execution), supplemented by correlation with
information from development tools already implemented for the project: version control system, unit
testing frameworks, code coverage tools.
The results are given through an analytical approch based around three main dimensions:
 The quality factors, which determine the nature of the impact of non-compliances detected, and the
impact on the quality of the application
 The quality domains, which specify the technical origin of non-compliances
 The severity levels, which positions the non-compliances on a severity scale to characterize their
priority
1
Software as a Service: application accessible remotely via Internet (using a standard browser)

2.2.1 The quality factors

The quality factors standardize a set of quality attributes which should claim the application according to ISO
912623:
 Maintainability. Ability of software to be easily repaired, depending on the effort required to locate,
identify and correct errors.
 Reliability. Ability of software to function properly in making the service expected in normal
operation.
 Changeability. Ability of software to be able to evolve, depending on the effort required to add,
delete, and modify the functions of an operating system.
 Security. Ability of software to operate within the constraints of integrity, confidentiality and
traceability requirements.
 Transferability. Ability to perform maintenance and evolution of software by a new team separate
from the one which developed the original software.
 Efficiency. Relationship between the level of software performance and the number of resources
required to operate in nominal conditions.
2.2.2 The quality domains

The quality domains determine the nature of problems according to their technical origin. There is six of it:
 Implementation. The problems inherent in coding: misuse of language, potential bugs, code hard to
understand ... These problems can affect one or more of the six quality factors.
 Structure. Problems related to the code organization: methods too long, too complex, with too many
dependencies ... These issues impact maintainability and changeability of the application.
 Test. Describes how the application is tested based on results of unit tests (failure rate, execution
time ...) but also of the nature of the code covered by the test execution. The objective is to ensure
that the tests cover the critical parts of the application.
2
ISO/IEC 9126-1:2001 Software engineering — Product quality — Part 1: Quality model :
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=22749
3
The analysis focuses on a subset of ISO 9126 in order to focus on controllable dimensions automatically.

 Architecture. Problems with the software architecture of the application. The platform allows the
definition of an architectural model to modularize the application into layers or components and
define communication constraints between them. The analysis identifies in the code all the calls
which do not satisfy these constraints, to detect the maintainability, changeability and security risk
levels.
 Documentation. Problems related to lack of documentation in the code. This area primarily impacts
the transferability of code.
 Duplication. Identification of all significant copy-pastes in the application. They impact reliability,
maintainability, transferability and changeability.
2.2.3 Severity levels

The severity levels are intended to characterize the priority of correction of non-compliances. This priority
depends on the severity of the impact of non-compliance, but also on the effort required for correction:
some moderately critical problems might be marked with a high level of severity because of the triviality of
their resolution.
To simplify interpretation, the severity levels are expressed using a four-level scale. The first is an error, the
others are warnings, from most to least severe:
 Forbidden
 Highly inadvisable
 Inadvisable
 To be avoided
Compared to the Forbidden level, other levels of severity are managed with a tolerance threshold, which
increases inversely with gravity.

3 Quality objective
One of distinctive features of "Quality Cockpit" is to perform the analysis according to real needs of the
project in terms of quality, in order to avoid unnecessary efforts and to ensure greater relevance of quality
risks.
These requirements are formalized by defining the "quality profile" of the application, which characterizes
the quality levels expected on each of the six main quality factors. This profile is then translated as "technical
requirements" which are technical rules to be followed by the developers.
3.1 The quality profile

For this audit, the profile is established as follows:
See the Quality Cockpit
3.2 The technical requirements

Based on the above quality profile, technical requirements have been selected from the “Quality Cockpit”
knowledge base. These technical requirements cover the six quality domains (implementation, structure,
testing, architecture, documentation, duplication) and are configured according to the quality profile
(thresholds, levels of severity ...). The objective is to ensure a calibration of requirements that ensures the
highest return on investment.

Here are the details of these technical requirements:
Domain Rule Explanation, goal and possible thresholds

- According to your profile, between 150 and 200 rules were selected. They
Implementation
are exhaustively presented in the appendix of the report (8.4.1

Implementation rules).
Objective: avoid bad practices and apply best practices related to the
technology used.
Size of methods Number of statements. This measure is different from the number of lines
of code: it does not include comment lines or blank lines but only lines with
at least one statement.
Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand.
The threshold for the project is:

 Number of lines: 100
Complexity of methods Cyclomatic complexity of a method. It measures the complexity of the

control flow of a method by counting the number of independent paths
covering all possible cases. The higher the number, the harder the code is to
maintain and test.
Structure
Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand, not testable and

which tend to have a significant rate of failure.
The threshold for the project is:

 Cyclomatic complexity: 20
Complexity and Identifies methods difficult to understand, test and maintain because of
coupling of methods moderate complexity (cyclomatic complexity) and numerous references to
other types (efferent coupling).
Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand and not testable.
The thresholds for the project are:

 Efferent coupling: 20

Domain Rule Explanation, goal and possible thresholds

Test coverage methods Rate of code coverage for a method. This metric is standardized by our
platform based on raw measures of code coverage when they are provided
in the project archive.
This rule requires a minimum level of testing (code coverage) for each
method of the application according to the TRI (TestRelevancyIndex); TRI
for each method assesses the risk that it contains bugs. His calculation takes
into account the business risks defined for the application.
Test
Objective: focus the test strategy and test efforts towards sensitive areas of
the application and check them. These sensitive areas are evaluated
according to their propensity to contain bugs and according to business
risks defined for the application.
Details of the thresholds are provided in the annex to the report (8.4.2 Code
coverage).
Rules defined See the architecture model defined for the application to check architecture
specifically through the constraints.
Architecture
architecture model.
Objective: ensure that developments follow the expected architecture
model and do not introduce inconsistencies which could be security holes,
maintenance or evolution issues.
Note: violations of architecture are not taken into account in the calculation
of non-compliance.
Header documentation Identifies methods of moderate complexity which have no documentation

of methods header. The methods considered are those whose cyclomatic complexity
Documentation
and number of statements exceed the thresholds defined specifically for

the project.
Objective: ensure that documentation is available in key processing blocks

to facilitate any changes in the development team (transferability).
The thresholds for the project are:

 Number of lines: 50
Detection of Duplicated blocks are invalid beyond 20 Statements

Duplication
duplications
Objective: detect identical blocks of code in several places in the
application, which often causes inconsistencies when making changes, and
which are factor of increased costs of testing and development.

4 Summary of results
This chapter summarizes the status of the project using global indicators. These indicators measure the
intrinsic quality of the project, but also compare its situation to other projects using “Quality Cockpit”
knowledge base.
4.1 Project status

The following indicators are related to the intrinsic situation of the project.
4.1.1 Rate of overall non-compliance

The rate of non-compliance measures the percentage of application code considered as non-compliant.
Specifically, this represents the ratio between the total number of statements, and the
number of statements in non-compliant classes. A class is considered as non-compliant if at least
one of the following statements is true:
- A forbidden non-compliance is detected in the class

- A set of non-compliances highly inadvisable, inadvisable, or to be avoided are detected in
the class, and beyond a certain threshold. This calculation depends on the severity of each non-
compliance and on the quality profile that adjusts the threshold of tolerance.

4.1.2 Deviation from target

This chart summarizes the difference between the target as represented by the quality profile and the
current status of the project. This difference is shown for each quality factor:
The level of non-compliance is calculated for each quality factor, and then weighted by the
level of requirements set for the related quality factor.
Quality theme Classes Significant non-compliances % application

Changeability 27 107 29%
Efficiency 7 8 5%
Maintainability 40 216 41%
Reliability 40 136 37%
Security 0 0 0%
Transferability 32 131 38%
[Total] 53 264 49.99%
Detailed results specify for each quality factor: the number of non-compliant classes, the
number of violations for selected rules, and the percentage of application code involved in non-
compliant classes.

4.1.3 Origin of non-compliances

The following chart shows the distribution of non-compliances according to their technical origin:
This chart compares each field according to the impact of rules that are associated with
the quality of the application. The impact is measured from the number of statements in classes
non-compliant.
4.1.4 Volumetry
The following table specifies the volume of the analyzed application:
Metric Value Trend

Line count 47671 +14.93%
Statement count 24034 +18.36%
Method count 4384 +13.75%
Class count 230 +10.58%
Package count 43 +4.88%
A "line" corresponds to a physical line of a source file. It may involve a white line or a
comment line. A "statement" is a primary unit of code, it can be written on multiple lines, but
also a line may contain multiple statements. For simplicity, a statement is delimited by a
semicolon (;) or a left brace ({).

4.2 Benchmarking
The “Quality Cockpit" knowledge base allows a comparative analysis of the project with other projects
reviewed on the platform. The objective is to measure its level of quality compared to an overall average.
This comparison benchmarking is proposed in relation to two categories of projects:
 The “Intra-Cockpit” projects: projects analyzed continuously on the platform, therefore, with a
quality level above average (a priori)
 The “Extra-Cockpit” projects: the projects reviewed from time to time on the platform in audit
mode, so with a highly heterogeneous quality.
Note: each project having its own specific quality profile, benchmarking does not take in account project
configuration, but uses instead raw measures.
4.2.1 Comparison on implementation issues

The chart below shows the status of the project implementation compared to the Extra-Cockpit projects,
therefore analyzed promptly on the platform. For each level of severity, the quality of the project is
positioned relative to others:

The project is positioned relative to other projects according to the rate of violations for
each rule. The distribution is based on the quartile method, three groups are distinguished,
"Better": the 25% best projects, "On the average": the 50% average projects, "Worse": the 25%
worse projects. This information is then synthesized by level of severity.
The implementation rules compared are not necessarily the same as quality profiles, but
here we compare the rules according to their severity level set for each project.
The following graph provides the same analysis, but this time with the Intra-Cockpit projects, analyzed
continuously on the platform, so with a level of quality normally above average since detected violations
should be more corrected:
A dominant red color indicates that the other projects tend to correct the violations
detected on this project.

4.2.2 Mapping the structure

The following chart compares the size of the methods of the current project with those of other projects,
"Intra-Cockpit" and "Extra-Cockpit", comparing the ratio of the application (as a percentage of statements)
which is located in processing blocks (methods) with a high number of statements:
A significant proportion of the application in the right area is an indicator of greater

maintenance and evolution costs.
NB: The application analyzed is indicated by the term "Release".

A similar comparison is provided for the cyclomatic complexity4 of methods, comparing the proportion of the
application (as a percentage of statements) that is located within complex methods:
A significant proportion of the application in the right area shows not only greater
maintenance and evolution costs, but also problems of reliability because this code is difficult to
test.
4.2.3 Comparison of main metrics

The following table compares the project with other projects, "Intra-Cockpit" and "Extra-cockpit", on the
main metrics related to the structure of the code. Recommended interval values are provided for
information purposes.
Metric Project Extra-Cockpit Intra-Cockpit Recommended

interval
Classes per package 5.35 7.57 50.68 6 - 26
Methods per class 19.06 10.71 8.74 4 - 10
Statements per method 5.48 8.05 7.26 7 - 13
Cyclomatic complexity per statement 0.34 0.3 0.29 0.16 - 0.24
4
Cyclomatic complexity measures the complexity of the code, and thus its ability to test it,
cf.http://classes.cecs.ucf.edu/eel6883/berrios/notes/Paper%204%20(Complexity%20Measure).pdf

4.3 Modeling application

To facilitate understanding of analysis results, the application is modeled in two ways: a functional
perspective to better identify the business features of the application and link them to the source code, and
a technical perspective to verify the technical architecture of the application.
These models are built using the modeling wizard available in the Cockpit. You can modify these templates
on the pages Functional modelization et Technical Architecture (depending on your user rights).
4.3.1 Functional model

The functional model represents the business view of application, which may be understood by all project
members.
The functional model is composed of modules, each one representing a business feature,
or a group of functionalities. These modules have been identified from a lexical corpus generated
from the application code which allows isolating the business vocabulary of the application.
4.3.2 Technical model

The technical model represents the technical architecture of the application code. The idea is to define a
target architecture model, which identifies the layers and / or technical components within the application,
and sets constraints to allow or prohibit communications between each of these elements.

The aim is threefold:
 Homogenize the behavior of an application. For example, to ensure that the logging traces are
written through a specific API, that data accesses pass through a dedicated layer, that some third-
party library is only used by specific components ...
 Ensure tightness of some components to facilitate their development and limit unintended
consequences, but also make them shareable with other applications. Dependency cycles are for
instance forbidden.
 Avoid security flaws for example by ensuring that calls to data layer always pass through a business
layer in charge of validation controls.
Results of the architecture analysis are provided in chapter 5.5 Architecture.
Green arrows formalize allowed communications between modules, while red arrows
formalize forbidden communications.

5 Detailed results
This chapter details the results by focusing, for each quality domain, non-compliant elements.
5.1 Detail by quality factors

The histogram below details the non-compliance rate for each quality factor, displaying also the number of
non-compliant classes. As a reminder, the rate of non-compliance is based on the number of statements
defined in non-compliant classes compared to the total number of statements in the project.
These rates of non-compliance directly depend on the quality profile and on the level of requirements that
have been selected:
Same class may be non-compliant on several factors, the total does not necessarily
correspond to the sum of the factors.

5.2 Implementation
Implementation domain covers the rules related to coding techniques. Unlike other domains, these rules are
often specific to the characteristics of a language (Java / C#). They identify, for example:
 Potential bugs: uninitialized variables, concurrency issues, recursive calls ...

 Optimizations in terms of memory or CPU
 Security vulnerabilities
 Obsolete code
 Code deviating from recommended standards
 ...
Implementations rules are the most numerous of the technical requirements. They are called "practice".
5.2.1 Breakdown by severity

The objective of this indicator is to identify the severity of the practices that led to the invalidation of the
classes. Here, severity is divided in two levels: forbidden practices (Forbidden security level) and inadvisable
practices (Highly inadvisable, Inadvisable and To be avoided security levels).
The following pie compares the number of non-compliant classes in implementation, according to the
practices that participated in this invalidation:
 When a class only violates forbidden practices, it is in the group “Forbidden practices”
 When a class only violates inadvisable practices, it is in the group “Inadvisable practices”
 Otherwise, the class violates practices of both categories and is in the group “Inadvisable and
forbidden practices”

The effort of correction related to forbidden practices is generally less important compared
to lower severities: a single violation is sufficient to cause a forbidden non-compliance when
several inadvisable practices are needed to cause non-compliance, depending on tolerance
thresholds.
The table below completes the previous graph by introducing the concept of “Significant non-compliance”. A
significant violation is a violation whose correction can fix fully or partially the non-compliance of a class.
Indeed, due to tolerance thresholds associated with levels of severity, the correction of some violations has
no impact on the non-compliance of the class.
Severity Significant non- New non- Corrected non- Other non-

compliances compliances compliances compliances
Forbidden 14 3 2 0
Highly inadvisable 71 29 7 70
Inadvisable 44 48 4 29
To be avoided 35 26 10 107
The columns "New non-compliance" and "Corrected non-compliances" are only relevant if
the audit follows a previous audit.

5.2.2 Practices to fix in priority

The two following tables provide a list of forbidden practices and highly inadvisable practices detected in the
application. These are generally the rules to correct first.
These tables provide for each practice the number of new non-compliances (if a previous audit has been
done), the total number of non-compliances for this practice, the number of non-compliant classes where
this practice has been detected and the percentage of statements of these classes compared to the overall
number of statement in the project.
These figures help to set up an action plan based on the impact associated with each practice.
5.2.2.1 Forbidden practices
Practice New Non- NC %

compliances classes application
DontUseNewToInstantiateIntegers 0 6 5 2.33%
AlwaysDeclareCloneableInterfaceWhenImplementingC 3 3 3 2.01%
loneMethod
AlwaysSynchronizeDateFormatter 0 1 1 1%
DontUseNewToInstantiateStrings 0 1 1 2.61%
MisplacedNullCheck 0 1 1 1%
NPEAlwaysThrown 0 1 1 1%
UseAppendMethodForStringBuffer 0 1 1 1%
5.2.2.2 Practice highly inadvisable
Practice New Non- NC classes %

compliances application
TraceErrorsWithLogger 20 80 28 33.98%
NeverMakeCtorCallInnerMethod 3 27 18 26.38%
UseLoggerRatherThanPrintMethods 4 27 7 9.47%
DontAssignVariablesInOperands 2 5 2 3.04%
DontIgnoreMethodsReturnValue 0 1 1 1.56%
OverrideEqualsWhenImplementingCompareTo 0 1 0 1%
5.2.3 Classes to fix in priority on the implementation issues

The two following tables provide an additional view about the impact of implementation issues in listing the
main classes involved in forbidden practices or highly inadvisable practices.

For each class is associated the number of existing violations (forbidden or highly inadvisable practices), the
number of new violations (if a previous audit has been done), and the compliance status of the class.
5.2.3.1 Classes with forbidden practices
Class NC New Non- Instructions

compliances
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.RemainingEstimationArray Yes 0 2 74
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Sprint Yes 1 2 218
icescrum2.service.chart.PointBurnupChartProduct Yes 0 2 121
icescrum2.presentation.app.chat.PrivateChat Yes 0 1 184
icescrum2.service.impl.HibernateManagerImpl Yes 0 1 76
icescrum2.dao.impl.ProductDao Yes 0 1 69
icescrum2.dao.impl.UserDao Yes 0 1 76
icescrum2.dao.model.ISprint Yes 1 1 56
icescrum2.presentation.model.SprintImpl Yes 1 1 208
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportXMLServiceImpl Yes 0 1 628

5.2.3.2 Classes with practice highly inadvisable
Class NC New Non- Instructions

compliances
icescrum2.service.impl.RepositoryServiceImpl Yes 0 13 51
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl Yes 1 9 455
icescrum2.service.impl.HibernateManagerImpl Yes 0 5 76
icescrum2.listeners.IS2ServletListener Yes 0 4 20
icescrum2.presentation.broadcast.RenderableSession Yes 0 4 110
icescrum2.service.chart.BurndownChartProduct Yes 0 4 172
icescrum2.service.chart.GlobalChartTest Yes 0 4 122
icescrum2.service.impl.ConfigurationServiceImpl Yes 1 4 103
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportXMLServiceImpl Yes 0 4 628
icescrum2.service.impl.ImportXMLServiceImpl Yes 0 4 482
icescrum2.service.impl.UserServiceImpl Yes 0 4 75
icescrum2.presentation.app.productbacklog.ProductBacklogUI Yes 2 3 817
icescrum2.service.chart.BurnupChartProduct Yes 0 3 184
icescrum2.service.chart.PointBurnupChartProduct Yes 0 3 121
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFSprint Yes 3 3 97
icescrum2.presentation.app.product.ProductUI Yes 0 2 375
icescrum2.dao.impl.ExceptionManager No 0 2 103
icescrum2.dao.impl.ProblemDao No 0 2 51
icescrum2.filters.OpenSessionInViewPhaseListener No 0 2 97
5.3 Structure
The Structure domain targets rules related to the code structure, for example:
 The size of methods

 The cyclomatic complexity of methods
 Coupling, or the dependencies of methods towards other classes
The objective is to ensure that the code is structured in such a way that it can be easily maintained, tested,
and can evolve.
These rules are “metric”. They measure values (e.g. A number of statements) and are conditioned by
thresholds (e.g. 100 statements / method). Only metrics on which developers are able to act are presented
here. They apply to all methods.

5.3.1 Typology of structural problems

This histogram shows for each rule of structure domain number of non-compliance (thus methods) and the
percentage of related statements compared to the total number of statements in the application:
The percentage of statements shown is interesting since there is often only a few methods
concentrating a large part of the application code.
When some rules have been configured to be excluded from the analysis, they are
displayed in this graph but without any results.
One method may be affected by several rules; therefore, the total does not correspond to
the sum of numbers.
The following table completes this view by introducing the number of new violations and the number of
violations corrected in the case where a previous audit was conducted:
Anomaly Significant non- New non- Corrected non- NC

compliances compliances compliances rate
Statement count higher than 100 2 1 0 1%
Cyclomatic complexity higher than 20 14 4 0 3%

5.3.2 Mapping methods by size

The histogram below shows a mapping of methods according to their size. The size is expressed in number of
statements to ignore the writing styles conventions.
The last interval identifies the methods with a number of statements which exceeds the threshold. These
methods are considered non-compliant because they are generally difficult to maintain and extend, and also
show a high propensity to reveal bugs because they are difficult to test.
The percentage of statements is provided because larger methods usually focus a significant part of the
application:
The following table details the main non-compliant methods identified in the last interval of the previous
graph:

Method Instructions Lines Complexity New

violation
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl.addRelea 131 227 38 New
sePlan ( icescrum2.dao.model.IUser, int[], int[],
icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct)
icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl.createCliche ( 208 343 42
icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct, java.util.Date)
5.3.3 Mapping methods by complexity

The histogram below shows a mapping of methods according to their cyclomatic complexity (see 8.1
Cyclomatic complexity).
Cyclomatic complexity is a measure aiming to characterize the complexity of a block of code, by identifying
all possible execution paths. This concept has been standardized by Mc Cabe5, but several calculation
methods exist. The one used here is the most popular and the simplest: it counts the number of branching
operators (if, for, while,? ...) and conditions (??, && ...).
The last interval identifies methods whose complexity exceeds the threshold. These methods are considered
non-compliant for the same reasons as for the long methods: they are generally difficult to maintain and
extend, and also show a high propensity to reveal bugs.
The percentage of statements and the percentage of complexity are provided because the most complex
methods generally focus a significant part of the application.
5
1976, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering: 308–320.
http://classes.cecs.ucf.edu/eel6883/berrios/notes/Paper%204%20(Complexity%20Measure).pdf.

The following table details the main non-compliant methods identified in the last interval of the previous
graph:
Method Instructions Lines Complexity New

violation
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl.addRelea 131 227 38 New
sePlan ( icescrum2.dao.model.IUser, int[], int[],
icescrum2.service.impl.ReleaseServiceImpl.saveRelease 59 84 30 New
( icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,
icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct, boolean,
icescrum2.dao.model.IUser)
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.closeSprint ( 70 120 21 New
icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,
icescrum2.dao.model.ISprint,
icescrum2.dao.model.IUser,
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.saveSprint ( 43 69 20 New
icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease, java.lang.Integer,
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Sprint.equals ( 47 70 84
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl.createCliche ( 208 343 42
icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct, java.util.Date)
icescrum2.service.impl.ImportXMLServiceImpl.parsePro 73 169 41
duct ( org.w3c.dom.Element)
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.ProductBacklogItem.equals ( 45 40 37
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Build.equals ( 29 27 24
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.CustomRole.equals ( 27 27 24
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.service.impl.UserServiceImpl.saveUser ( 24 36 23
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.ExecTest.equals ( 27 25 22
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Task.equals ( 27 26 22
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Test.equals ( 27 25 22
java.lang.Object)
5.3.4 Mapping methods by their complexity and efferent coupling

This rule is intended to identify methods whose code has many dependencies to other classes. The concept
of “efferent coupling” refers to those outgoing dependencies.
The principle is that a method with a strong efferent coupling is difficult to understand, maintain and test.
First because it requires knowledge of the different types it depends on, then because the risk of
destabilization is higher because of these dependencies.

This rule is crossed with the cyclomatic complexity to ignore some trivial methods, such as initialization
methods of graphical interfaces that make calls to many classes of widgets without presenting any real
complexity.
This rule considers that a method is non-compliant if it exceeds a threshold of efferent coupling and
threshold of cyclomatic complexity.
The chart below shows a mapping of methods according to their complexity and their efferent coupling. Each
dot represents one or more methods with the same values of complexity and coupling. They are divided into
four zones according to their status in relation to both thresholds:
 The area on the lower left (green dots) contains compliant methods, below both thresholds
 The area on the lower right (gray dots) contains compliant methods; they have reached the
complexity threshold, but remain below the coupling threshold
 The area in the upper left (gray dots) contains compliant methods; they have reached the coupling
threshold, but remain below the complexity threshold
 The area in the upper right (red dots) contains non-compliant methods; above both thresholds
The intensity of the color of the dots depends on the number of methods that share the
same values in complexity and coupling: the more the color of the point is marked, the more
involved methods.

The histogram below provides an additional view of this mapping and precise figures for the four zones in
terms of percentage of methods and statements of the application. The last bars indicate the area of non-
compliance:
The following table details the main non-compliant methods:
Method Efferent Complexity New

Coupling violation
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl.addReleasePlan ( 35 38 New
icescrum2.dao.model.IUser, int[], int[],
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.closeSprint ( 29 21
icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease, icescrum2.dao.model.ISprint,
icescrum2.dao.model.IUser, icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct)
icescrum2.service.impl.ImportXMLServiceImpl.parseProduct ( 23 41
org.w3c.dom.Element)
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.autoSaveSprint ( 21 16
icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease, icescrum2.dao.model.IUser,
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.saveSprint ( 20 20
icescrum2.dao.model.ISprint, icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,
java.lang.Integer, icescrum2.dao.model.IUser,
icescrum2.service.impl.ImportXMLServiceImpl.importProduct ( 20 18 New
java.io.InputStream, icescrum2.dao.model.IUser,
icescrum2.service.beans.ProgressObject)

5.4 Test
The Test domain provides rules to ensure that the application is sufficiently tested, quantitatively but also
qualitatively, i.e. tests should target risk areas.
5.4.1 Issues
It is important to situate the problems inherent in managing tests to understand the results of analysis for
this area.
5.4.1.1 Unit testing and code coverage

The results of this domain depend on the testing process applied to the project: if automated unit testing
process and / or code coverage are implemented on the project, then the analysis uses the results of these
processes.
As a reminder, we must distinguish unit testing and code coverage:
 A unit test is an automated test, which usually focus on a simple method inside source code. But
since this method has generally dependencies on other methods or classes, a unit test can test a
more or less important part of the application (the larger is this part, the less relevant is the test)
 Code coverage measures the amount of code executed from tests, by identifying each element
actually executed at runtime (statements, conditional branches, methods ...). These tests can be
unit tests (automated) or integration tests / functional (manual or automated).
Code coverage is interesting to combine with the unit tests because it is the only way to measure the code
actually tested. However, many projects still do not check the code coverage, which does not allow verifying
the quality of testing in this type of analysis.
The indicators presented next address both cases; they are useful for projects with unit tests and/or code
coverage but also for other projects.
5.4.1.2 Relevance of code coverage

Code coverage provides figures indicating the proportion of code executed after the tests, for example 68%
of statements of a method are covered or 57% of the project statements...
The problem is that these figures do not take into account the relevance to test the code. For example a
coverage of 70% of the application is a good figure, but the covered code could be trivial and without any
real interest for the tests (e.g. accessors or generated code), whereas the critical code may be located in the
remaining 30%.
The analysis performed here captures the relevance to test of each method, which is used to calibrate the
code coverage requirements and to set appropriate thresholds to better target testing effort towards risk
areas.

5.4.2 TestRelevancyIndex metrics (TRI) and TestEffortIndex (TEI)

To refine the analysis of tests, two new metrics were designed by the Centre of Excellence in Information and
Communication Technologies (CETIC) based on researches conducted during the past 20 years and from the
“Quality Cockpit” knowledge base6.
The TestRelevancyIndex (TRI) measures the relevancy of testing a method in accordance with its technical
risks and its business risk.
Technical risk assesses the probability of finding a defect; it is based on different metrics such as cyclomatic
complexity, number of variables, number of parameters, efferent coupling, cumulative number of non-
compliances...
The business risk associates a risk factor to business features which should be tested in priority (higher risk),
or instead which should not be tested (minor risk). It must be determined at the initialization of the audit to
be considered in the TRI calculations. The objective is to guide the testing effort on the important features.
For this, the TRI is used to classify the methods according to a scale of testing priority, and thus to distinguish
the truly relevant methods to test from trivial and irrelevant methods in this area. For each level of the scale,
a specific threshold to achieve with code coverage can be set. This allows setting a high threshold for critical
methods, and a low threshold for low-priority methods.
The TestEffortIndex (TEI) completes the TRI by measuring the level of effort required to test a method. Like
the TRI, it is based on a set of unit metrics characterizing a method. It helps to refine the decisions to select
the code to be tested by balancing the effort over the relevance test.
The details of calculating these two indexes are providing in annex (8.2 The coupling).
5.4.3 Mapping methods by testing priority

The histogram below shows a mapping of methods according to their priority of testing, using a scale of four
levels based on TRI of methods (each level corresponding to a range of TRI).
This mapping uses the code coverage information only if they were supplied for analysis. For each priority
level are indicated:
 The average coverage rate (0 if coverage information was not provided)

 The number of methods not covered (no coverage)
 The number of methods insufficiently covered (coverage rate below the target rate set for this level
of priority)
 The number of methods sufficiently covered (coverage greater than or equal to the target rate set
for this level of priority)
6
CETIC, Kalistick. Statistically Calibrated Indexes for Unit Test Relevancy and Unit Test Writing Effort, 2010

The table below shows these figures for each priority level, also adding a fifth level corresponding to the
methods without test priority:
Test priority Covered Uncovered Insufficient covered

Critical 0 3 2
High 4 13 5
Medium 6 46 2
Low 18 96 3
None 115 3093 0
[Total] 143 3251 12
5.4.4 Coverage of application by tests

This graph, called “TreeMap” shows code coverage of the application against test objectives. It helps to
identify parts of the application that are not sufficiently tested regarding identified risks. It gathers the
classes of project into technical subsets, and characterizes them following two dimensions:
 size, which depends on the number of statements

 color, which represents the deviation from the test objective set for the classes: the color red
indicates that the current coverage is far from the goal, whereas the green color indicates that the
goal is reached

A class can be green even if it is not or little tested: for example, classes with a low
probability of technical defects or without business risk. Conversely, a class already tested can be
stated as insufficient (red / brown) if its objective is very demanding.
An effective strategy to improve its coverage is to focus on large classes close to the goal.
5.4.5 Most important classes to test (Top Risks)

The following chart allows quickly identifying the most relevant classes to test, the “Top Risks”. It is a
representation known as "cloud" that displays the classes using two dimensions:
 The size of the class name depends on its relevancy in being tested (TRI cumulated for all methods of
this class)
 The color represents the deviation from the coverage goal set for the class, just as in the previous
TreeMap

This representation identifies the critical elements, but if you want to take into account the
effort of writing tests, you must focus on the following representation to select items to be
corrected.
5.4.6 Most important classes to test and require the least effort (Quick Wins)
The “Quick Wins” complements “Top Risks” by taking into account the testing effort required for testing the
class (TEI):
 The size of the class name depends on its interest in being tested (TRI), but weighted by the effort
required (TEI accumulated for all methods): a class with a high TRI and a high TEI (therefore difficult
to test) appears smaller than a class with an average TRI but a low TEI
 The color represents the deviation from the coverage goal set for the class, just like the TreeMap or
QuickWin
5.4.7 Methods to test in priority

The following table details the main methods to be tested first. Each method is associated with its current
coverage rate, the raw value of its TRI and its level of TEI:

Method Coverage Relevancy Priority Effort New

(TRI) violation
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl. 0% 39.0 Critical Very high New
addReleasePlan ( icescrum2.dao.model.IUser,
int[], int[], icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct)
icescrum2.service.impl.ImportXMLServiceImpl. 0% 39.0 Critical Very high
parseProduct ( org.w3c.dom.Element)
icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl.creat 0% 37.0 Critical Very high
eCliche ( icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct,
java.util.Date)
icescrum2.service.impl.ProductBacklogServiceI 76% 36.0 Critical High
mpl.saveProductBacklogitem (
icescrum2.dao.model.IStory,
icescrum2.dao.model.IProduct,
icescrum2.dao.model.ICustomRole)
icescrum2.service.impl.TaskServiceImpl.updat 51% 35.0 Critical High
eTask ( icescrum2.dao.model.ITask,
java.lang.String)
icescrum2.service.impl.ProductBacklogServiceI 60% 34.0 High High
mpl.associateItem (
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.Sprint.equals ( 0% 33.0 High Very high
java.lang.Object)
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportPDFServiceImpl. 0% 33.0 High High New
addProject ( java.util.HashMap,
icescrum2.service.chart.VelocityChartSprint.ini 0% 33.0 High High
t()
icescrum2.service.chart.BurndownChartReleas 0% 33.0 High High
e.init ( )
icescrum2.service.impl.ReleaseServiceImpl.up 45% 32.0 High High
dateRelease ( icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,
icescrum2.service.impl.TestServiceImpl.saveTe 79% 32.0 High High
st ( icescrum2.dao.model.ITest,
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.auto 0% 32.0 High Very high
SaveSprint ( icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,

icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.calcu 47% 32.0 High High

lateDailyHours ( icescrum2.dao.model.ISprint,
int)
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.close 61% 32.0 High Very high
Sprint ( icescrum2.dao.model.IRelease,
icescrum2.dao.model.impl.ProductBacklogIte 0% 31.0 High High
m.equals ( java.lang.Object)
mpl.changeRank (
mpl.getStory ( org.w3c.dom.Element,
java.util.Map)
mpl.updateProductBacklogItem (
icescrum2.dao.model.ICustomRole)
5.5 Architecture
The Architecture domain aims to monitor compliance of a software architecture model. The target
architecture model has been presented in Chapter 4.3.2 Technical model. The following diagram shows the
results of architecture analysis by comparing this target model with current application code.
Currently, architecture non-compliances are not taken into account in the calculation of
non-compliance of the application.

Non-compliances related to communication constraints between two elements are

represented using arrows. The starting point is the calling element, the destination is the one
called. The orange arrows involve direct communication between a top layer and bottom layer
non-adjacent (sometimes acceptable). The black arrows refer to communications totally
prohibited.
5.6 Duplication
The Duplication domain is related to the “copy-and-paste” identified in the application. To avoid many false
positives in this area, a threshold is defined to ignore blocks with few statements.
Duplications should be avoided for several reasons: maintenance and changeability issues, testing costs, lack
of reliability...
5.6.1 Mapping of duplication

The chart below shows a mapping of duplications within the application. It does not take into account the
duplication involving a number of statements below the threshold, because they are numerous and mostly
irrelevant (e.g. duplication of accessors between different classes sharing similar properties).

Duplicates are categorized by ranges of duplicated statements. For each range is presented:
 The number of different duplicated blocks (each duplicated at least once)

 The maximum number of duplications of the same block
5.6.2 Duplications to fix in priority

The following table lists the main duplicates to fix in priority. Each block is identified by a unique identifier,
and each duplication is located in the source code. If a previous audit were completed, a flag indicates
whether duplication is new or not.

Duplication Duplicated Class involved Lines New

number blocks size violation
239 111 icescrum2.presentation.app.roadmap.RoadmapUI 858:1003 New
239 111 icescrum2.presentation.app.releasebrowser.ReleaseBr 1045:1190 New
owserUI
owserUI
237 56 icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl 309:373
237 56 icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl 201:263
236 52 icescrum2.service.chart.GlobalChartTest 243:316
236 52 icescrum2.service.chart.VelocityChartSprint 219:292
236 52 icescrum2.service.chart.ExecChartTest 156:229
235 50 icescrum2.service.chart.BurndownChartProduct 322:391
owserUI
233 48 icescrum2.service.chart.BurndownChartRelease 202:268
5.7 Documentation
The Documentation domain aims to control the level of technical documentation of the code. Only the
definition of standard comment header of the methods is verified: Javadoc for Java, XmlDoc for C#. Inline
comments (in the method bodies) are not evaluated because of the difficulty to verify their relevance (often
commented code or generated comments).
In addition, the header documentation is verified only for methods considered quite long and complex.
Because the effort to document trivial methods is rarely justified. For this, a threshold on the cyclomatic
complexity and a threshold on the number of statements are defined to filter out methods to check.
5.7.1 Mapping documentation issues

The chart below shows the status of header documentations for all methods with a complexity greater than
the threshold. The methods are grouped by ranges of size (number of statements). For each range are given
the number of methods with header documentation and the number of methods without header
documentation. The red area in the last range corresponds to the methods not documented therefore non-
compliant.

5.7.2 Methods to document in priority

The following table lists the main methods to document in priority:
Method Instructions Complexity New

violation
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportXMLServiceImpl.exportSprint 81 10 New
icescrum2.service.impl.ReleaseServiceImpl.saveRelease 59 30 New
icescrum2.service.impl.ClicheServiceImpl.createCliche 208 42
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.autoSaveSprint 89 16
icescrum2.service.chart.VelocityChartSprint.init 78 13
icescrum2.service.impl.SprintServiceImpl.closeSprint 70 21
icescrum2.service.impl.ExportXMLServiceImpl.exportItem 66 10
icescrum2.service.chart.BurndownChartRelease.init 66 14

6 Action Plan
For each domain, a recommendation of corrections was established on the basis of tables detailing the rules
and code elements to correct. The following graph provides a comprehensive strategy to establish a plan of
corrections by defining a list of actions. This list is prioritized according to the expected return on
investment: the actions recommended in the first place are those with the best ratio between effort to
produce and gain on the overall rate of non-compliance.
Here is the explanation of each step:
1. Correction of forbidden practices

These practices are often easy to correct, and because they invalidate the classes directly, the
correction generally leads to significantly improve the overall rate of non-compliance (if classes are
not invalidated by other rules).
2. Splitting long methods

Using some IDE, it is often easy to break a method too long into several unit methods. This is
achieved using automated operations performing refactorings, avoiding any risk of regression
associated with manual intervention.
3. Documentation of complex methods

This step aims to document methods identified as non-compliant in documentation domain, this is a
simple but potentially tedious operation.
4. Correction of inadvisable practices

Correspond to all practices remaining after correction of forbidden practices: practices highly
inadvisable, inadvisable and to be avoided.

5. Removing of duplications
This operation is more or less difficult depending on the case: you have first to determine whether
the duplication should really be factorized, because two components may share the same code base
but be independent. Note that the operation can be automated by some IDE and according to the
type of duplication.
6. Modularization of complex operations

This operation is similar to splitting long methods, but is often more difficult to achieve due to the
complexity of the code.
The action plan can be refined on the Quality Cockpit using the mechanism of "tags." Tags
allow labeling the results of analysis to facilitate operations such as the prioritization of
corrections, their assignment to developers or the targeting of their fix version.

7 Glossary
Block coverage
Block coverage measures the rate of code blocks executed during testing compared to total blocks. A code
block is a code path with a single entry point, a single exit point and a set of statements executed in
sequence. It ends when it reaches a conditional statement, a function call, an exception, or a try / catch.
Branch coverage
Branch coverage measures the rate of branches executed during tests by the total number of branches.
if (value)
{
//
}
This code will be covered by branches to 100% if the if condition was tested in the case of true and false.
Line coverage
Lines (or statements) coverage measures the rate of executed lines during testing against the total number
of lines. This measure is insensitive to conditional statements, coverage of lines can reach 100% whereas all
conditions are not executed.
Line of code
A physical line of a source code in a text file. White line or comment line are counted in lines of code.
Non-compliance
A test result that does not satisfy the technical requirements defined for the project. Non-compliance is
related to a quality factor and a quality domain.
Synonym (s): violation
Quality domain
The test results are broken down into four areas depending on the technical origin of the non-compliances:
 Implementation: Issues related to the use of language or algorithmic

 Structure: Issues related to the organization of the source code: methods size, cyclomatic complexity
...
 Test: Related to unit testing and code coverage
 Architecture: Issues related to the software architecture
 Documentation : Issues related to the code documentation: comments headers, inline comments ...
 Duplication : The “copy-pastes” found in the source code
Quality factor
The test results are broken down into six quality factors following application needs in terms of quality:
 Efficiency: Does the application ensure required execution performance?

 Changeability: Do the code changes require higher development costs?

 Reliability: Does the application contain bugs that affect its expected behavior?
 Maintainability: Do the maintenance updates require a constant development cost?
 Security: Has the application security flaws?
 Transferability: Is the transfer of the application towards a new development team a problem?
Statement
A statement is a primary code unit. For simplicity, a statement is delimited by a semicolon (;) or by a left
brace ({). Examples of statements in Java:
 int i = 0;
 if (i == 0) {
 } else {}
 public final class SomeClass
 {
 import com.project.SomeClass;
 package com.project;
Unlike lines of code, statements do not include blank lines and comment lines. In addition, a line can contain
multiple statements.

8 Annex
8.1 Cyclomatic complexity

Cyclomatic complexity is an indicator of the number of possible paths of execution.
Its high value is a sign that the source code will be hard to understand, to test, to validate, to maintain and to
evolve.
8.1.1 Definition
Imagine a control graph that represents the code that you want to measure the complexity. Then, count the
number of faces of the graph. This gives the structural complexity of the code, also called cyclomatic
complexity.

8.1.2 Example
We want to measure the complexity of the code:
Code analyzed Control graph
int x = 3;
if (x > 0) {
x++;
} else {
x -;
The graph contains 4 edges, 4 nodes and 2 faces (1

ingoing, 1 outgoing). The CC number is thus 2.
8.1.3 Corollary of the definition

CC = Number of decisions + 1
 An if statement counts for 1 decision

 A while statement counts for 1 decision
 A case statement counts for N decision.
8.1.4 Diagnosis to be made

7
Value of the cyclomatic Risk assessment by S.E.I.
complexity
1-10 Simple program, without much risk
11-20 Complexity and moderate risk
21-50 Complex, high risk
Above 50 Not testable, high risk
7
: The S.E.I. (Software Engineering Institute, http://www.sei.cmu.edu/) is the institute at the origin of the CMMI
standar. Its researches on the quality of code make it a major and reliable actor in the domain. CMMi (Capability
Maturity Model Integration), is a process improvement approach that helps organizations improve their performance.
CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. (source:
Wikipedia).

8.2 The coupling

The coupling measures the level of dependencies between packages, classes or methods. When the coupling
is high, then the application is not modular and will be difficult to change.
8.2.1 Definition
Two classes are coupled when methods declared in one use methods or instantiate variables defined in the
other. The relationship is symmetric: if class A is coupled to B, then B is coupled to A. The metric CBO
(Coupling Between Classes) measure for a given class A, the number of classes that are coupled to this class.
The efferent coupling measures for a given method, the number of references made to third types and their
methods in the method body. The higher the efferent coupling is, the more the method depends on other
classes.
8.2.2 Calculation of coupling

The calculation of coupling between classes may be simple, for example by counting:
 The attribute declarations with references to classes

 Formal parameters (in the method signatures for example)
 throws declarations
 Local variables
 Types
The calculation of efferent coupling for a method is also straightforward, for example by counting:
 Formal parameters (in the method signature) with a non-primitive type defined outside the class
 throws declarations
 Local variables of the method using a non-primitive type defined outside the class

8.3 TRI and TEI

TRI (TestRelevancyIndex) and TEI (TestEffortIndex) are two indexes which measure respectively the
relevance to test the code and effort for implementing these tests. They were designed in partnership with
the Centre of Excellence in Information and Communication Technologies (CETIC) from millions of lines of
code analyzed by the “Quality Cockpit” platform 8.
8.3.1 TRI (TestRelevancyIndex)
8.3.1.1 Objective
The goal of TRI is to refine the analysis of code coverage performed by tests correlating the raw concept of
code coverage with relevance to test a method. The emphasis is no longer just the percentage of code
covered but also the relevance in the choice of tested methods. The interest is to ensure that the goal of
code coverage to reach will target appropriated methods.
8.3.1.2 Principle
TRI is an index specific to methods, whose value is obtained by scoring the values of some unitary metrics
(cyclomatic complexity, afferent coupling...) and applying a risk factor. This risk factor is associated with
business features the code element in implied with. Therefore risk factors are specific to the application.
Depending on the value of TRI, the methods are classified into five priority groups:
 Critical : Complex / sensitive methods to test absolutely

 High
 Average
 Low
 No : Useless trivial methods to test
Each priority group defines:
 A coverage threshold to reach.

 A level of severity for non-compliances
It is thus possible to specify for the critical elements a demanding test objective, handling different use cases,
and for lower priority items, define tests that target only nominal use cases.
8.3.1.3 Details of unit metrics

The TRI is calculated from the following unit metrics:
 Cyclomatic complexity of the method

 Number of method parameters
 Number of local variables in the method
 Afferent coupling
 Efferent coupling
 Cumulative number of non-compliance of the method
8
CETIC, Kalistick. Statistically Calibrated Indexes for Unit Test Relevancy and Unit Test Writing Effort, 2010

8.3.2 The TEI (TestEffortIndex)
8.3.2.1 Objective
TEI introduces a new dimension in the prioritization of test methods, providing an estimate of the effort
required to test a method.
This index is not implied in the non-compliance of methods, it is simply provided as a guide.
8.3.2.2 Principle
The TEI is an index specific to methods, whose value is obtained by scoring the values of some unit metrics
(cyclomatic complexity, number of parameters ...). Based on this TEI value, the methods are classified into
five groups of test effort:
 Very low: trivial methods to test

 Low
 Normal
 High
 Very high: complex methods very difficult to exhaustively test
8.3.2.3 Details of unit metrics

The TEI is calculated from the following unit metrics:
 Cyclomatic complexity of the method

 Number of method parameters
 Number of local variables in the method

8.4 Technical Requirements
8.4.1 Implementation rules
Reference Short description Severity

AlwaysCallSuperCloneInCl The call to <code>clone</code> must always go up the inheritance Forbidden
oneMethod
hierarchy
AlwaysDeclareClassPacka Always organise classes into packages. Forbidden
ge
AlwaysDeclareCloneableIn Always declare the interface <code>Cloneable</code> when the Forbidden
terfaceWhenImplementing
CloneMethod
clone method is implemented.
AlwaysSynchronizeDateFo As the <code>java.text.XXXFormat</code> formatting classes are Forbidden
rmatter
not thread-safe, it is essential to synchronise processing in a multi-
threading environment.
AvoidBadPatternDoubleCh The practice of "Double-checked locking", which aims to improve Forbidden
eckLocking
the synchronisation performance of some resources, is not a
guaranteed function.
CallWaitInsideWhile A call to the <code>wait()</code> instruction should be made Forbidden
within a while rather than an <code>if</code>.
ChooseDifferentNamesFor A method must not have the same name as the class to which it Forbidden
MethodAndClass
belongs
DontAssignBooleansInCon Assigning a Boolean within a condition is unclear and, in fact, is Forbidden
ditions
often the result of a typing error.
DontAssignVariablesInCon Performing assignments within conditions makes the code very Forbidden
ditions
difficult to read.
DontCallFinalizeExplicitely The <code>finalize()</code> method must never be explicitly Forbidden
called.
DontCallNotifyWithoutMoni Calling the <code>notify()</code> method on an object without Forbidden
tor
having a lock on it leads, during execution, to an
<code>IllegalMonitorStateException</code>.
DontCallRunExplicitely The <code>run()</code> method of a <code>Runnable</code> Forbidden
must not be called directly.
DontCallWaitWithoutMonit Calling the <code>wait()</code> method on an object without Forbidden
or
having a lock on it leads, during execution, to an
<code>IllegalMonitorStateException</code>.
DontCatchIllegalMonitorSt Explicit handling of the exception Forbidden
ateException
<code>IllegalMonitorStateException</code> generally indicates
poor code design.
DontCatchNPE The exception NullPointerException must never be caught. Forbidden
DontChangeLockInSynchr In a synchronization block, don't change the object reference with Forbidden
onizedBlock
which the current block is being synchronized. Otherwise, it can
cause thread deadlocks.
DontCompareFloatToNaN A variable must never be compared to the special Forbidden
<code>NaN</code> (Not A Number) value
DontCompareObjectWithD An equality test will always return false for two compared objects Forbidden
istinctType
with different types.
DontCreateExceptionNotT An exception is created but not thrown. Forbidden
hrown

DontDefineHardwiredDBP The password for logging into the database should not be Forbidden
assword
hardcoded in the Java code.
DontDefineHardwiredPath Hard-coded file paths are prohibited. Forbidden
Names
DontDefineTooManyLevel It is very difficult to understand a design when there are many Forbidden
sOfNestedInnerClasses
internal nested classes
DontHideInheritedInstance When a class inherits from another class, you must make sure that Forbidden
Fields
you don't hide the fields belonging to the parent class, because
this can have disastrous side-effects.
DontInstantiateStringBuffer Don't instantiate a StringBuffer with a char argument because the Forbidden
WithChar
constructor is used to initialize the size of the StringBuffer.
DontOverloadFinalize It is inadvisable to redefine the finalize() method with parameters. Forbidden
This method will not be called by the JVM and could be a source of
confusion and errors.
DontOverwriteNonReadPa You should not write to parameters which are never read. Forbidden
rameter
DontPutRandomResultInIn The result of the random operation must not be stored as an Forbidden
teger
integer
DontSynchronizeOnBoole Don't synchronize on a Boolean object. Otherwise, it can cause Forbidden
an
thread deadlocks.
DontSynchronizeOnBoxed Don't synchronize on a primitive Wrapper object as an integer, for Forbidden
Primative
example. Otherwise, it can cause thread deadlocks.
DontSynchronizeOnConst Don't synchronize on a String constant. Otherwise, it can cause Forbidden
antString
thread deadlocks.
DontUseAssertAsIdentifier The word 'assert' must not be used as an identifier because it has Forbidden
been a reserved word since Java 5.
DontUseConstructorsInClo Clone must not use a constructor Forbidden
neMethod
DontUseDirectlyParameter Don't write HTTP parameters directly into a cookie that will be Forbidden
InCookieResponse
returned to the client browser.
DontUseDirectlyParameter Don't write HTTP parameters directly into the HTTP header Forbidden
InHeaderResponse
response.
DontUseDirectlyParameter Don't write HTTP parameters directly into the Servlet output Forbidden
InServletWriter
(cross-site scripting vulnerability).
DontUseEnumAsIdentifier Enum must not be used as an identifier for reasons of portability Forbidden
to Java 5 and above
DontUseEqualsOnFloats Comparisons of floating-point numbers may be inaccurate. Forbidden
DontUseMultipleUnaryOpe Writing multiple unary operators together creates complex code. Forbidden
rators
DontUseNewToInstantiateI Creation of an Integer object from a primitive integer must be Forbidden
ntegers
done using the valueOf() method rather than the constructor.
DontUseNewToInstantiate Instantiation of new String objects is generally pointless, String Forbidden
Strings
objects aredirectly initialised from character strings.
DontUseNonCaseLabelInS The use of label statements during development is recognized as Forbidden
witch
being a bad way of coding.
DontUseOctalNotation Don't assign an Octal value (integer beginning with 0) to an Forbidden
integer.
DontUseReturnInFinallyBl Use of the return instruction in a finally block is prohibited. Forbidden
ock
DontUseSameVariableLoo The same loop variable must not be incremented for two nested Forbidden
pAsEnclosingLoop
'for' loops
ImpossibleCast Cast which always returns <code>ClassCastException</code> Forbidden
InfiniteLoop Infinite loops are an inadvisable practice in a Java environment. Forbidden

InfiniteRecursiveCall Recursive methods must always have a stopping condition. Forbidden

MakeSingletonsThreadSaf Singletons must be thread-safe to avoid inconsistencies in multi- Forbidden
e
tasking environments.
MisplacedNullCheck The check that an object is not <code>null</code> must not be Forbidden
carried out after it has been used, but before. This makes the test
pointless and indicates that it should have been done earlier.
MisplacedSemicolon A semi-colon defined immediately after an if is generally a typing Forbidden
error.
MisusedNullCheck The check that an object is not <code>null</code> is erroneous. Forbidden
This case will very probably generate a <code>Null Pointer
Exception</code>.
NPEAlwaysThrown A <code>NullPointerException</code> will be systematically Forbidden
raised with regard to the written code.
NeverCallGarbageCollecto Calls to the Garbage Collector must never be explicitly made Forbidden
rExplicitely
except in very special cases of the benchmark type.
NeverCallUglyJavaMethod The methods System.RunFinalizersOnExit and Forbidden
Runtime.runFinalizersOnExit are known for causing problems and
having serious side-effects.
NeverDefineClassFieldsIn There should be no instance variables in J2EE Servlets Forbidden
J2EEServlet
NeverDefineClassFieldsIn There should be no instance variables in J2EE Struts Forbidden
J2EEStruts
NeverMakeCtorCallInnerCl A constructor should never use an internal class, because it is not Forbidden
ass
yet initialised during construction.
NeverMakeCtorCallInnerM A constructor must never call an internal method in an abstract Forbidden
ethodInAbstractClass
class. This can have side effects during construction of derived
child classes
SQLStatementsAndResult An SQL statement and a resultset have an index which begins at 1 Forbidden
setsParametersStartAtOne
and not at 0.
SameCodeForTwoPaths When two branches of a condition define exactly the same Forbidden
processing, the code is generally suffering from a copy/paste
operation and is erroneous.
UseAppendMethodForStri It is illogical to use the practice of loading a Forbidden
ngBuffer
<code>StringBuffer</code> by concatenating strings without using
the <code>append()</code> method.
UseBetterObjectArrayList We recommend that you use the classes in the collections Forbidden
framework as replacements for the <code>Vector</code> class.
UseBetterObjectMap We recommend that you use the classes in the collections Forbidden
framework as replacements for the <code>Hashtable</code>
class.
UseSameArgCountInStrin The number of wildcards in the format string must equal the Forbidden
gFormat_
number of values passed into the method as a parameter.
UseStringBufferForStringC It is preferable to use a StringBuffer to concatenate Forbidden
oncatenation
<code>String</code> objects in a loop.
UselessCheckEqualsNull According to the standard Java contract, an Forbidden
<code>equals()</code> method called with <code>null</code> as
a parameter (ex: <code>obj1.equals(null)</code>) must always
return false. Such a call is therefore erroneous (you should do
<code>obj1==null</code>) or it is useless.
UselessIfStatement The instruction <code>if</code> is pointless because the condition Forbidden
tested always has the same value.

AlwaysMakeInitializersStat
It is inadvisable to initialise attributes in non-static blocks and Highly
ic
outside methods inadvisable
AlwaysProvideThrowClone A non-cloneable class must always return Highly
NotSupportedExceptionFo
rCloneMethod
<code>CloneNotSupportedException</code> inadvisable
DontAssignVariablesInOpePerforming assignments within conditions or within operations Highly
rands
complicates reading the code inadvisable
DontCallNextInHasNextMe <code>Next</code> must never be called within a Highly
thod
<code>hasNext</code> method. inadvisable
DontCallSystemExit Calls to the <code>System.exit()</code> method are rarely Highly
justifiable. inadvisable
DontIgnoreInputstreamRe It is essential to check the return from the methods Highly
adReturnValue
<code>read(byte[])</code> and <code>read(byte[] b int, inadvisable
int)</code> to use the resulting array.
DontIgnoreMethodsReturn Return values of methods should be used. Highly
Value
inadvisable
DontMakeAssignmentInRe Don't assign a variable in a return statement. Highly
turnStatement
inadvisable
DontMakeClassesFieldsPu Class attributes must not be declared with public visibility, unless Highly
blicExceptFinalFields
they are final or static. inadvisable
DontStartThreadInsideCtor Starting a thread within a class constructor is a risky practice. Highly
inadvisable
DontThrowNPE Explicitly throwing a <code>NullPointerException</code> can Highly
cause confusion. inadvisable
DontTouchForLoopVariabl Be careful not to modify the iteration variable of a for loop within Highly
e
the loop. inadvisable
DontUseExceptionAsGoto We recommend that you do not use exceptions to control the flow Highly
of a method, throwing an exception to catch it a few lines later. inadvisable
DontUseInstanceofInCatch Different types of exception must be caught in different catch Highly
Blocks
blocks, not by manually testing the type of each exception. inadvisable
NeverMakeCtorCallInnerM A constructor must never call an internal method Highly
ethod
inadvisable
OverrideEqualsAndHashc If one of the two methods <code>equals()</code> or Highly
odeTogether
<code>hashCode()</code> must be overloaded, it is necessary to inadvisable
overload the other one.
OverrideEqualsWhenImple Implementation of <code>compareTo()</code> also assumes Highly
mentingCompareTo
implementation of <code>equals()</code> inadvisable
ThreadsMustHaveRunMet A class deriving from <code>Thread</code> or implementing Highly
hod
<code>Runnable</code> must implement the inadvisable
<code>run()</code> method.
TraceErrorsWithLogger We recommend that you log errors using a logging API rather than Highly
making calls to <code>printStackTrace()</code>. inadvisable
UseBetterInterfaceIterator We recommend that you use the interfaces in the collections Highly
framework (<code>Iterator</code>) as replacements for inadvisable
<code>Enum</code>.
UseConstantStringsForSql For security reasons, SQL requests must have a consistent Highly
Requests
structure inadvisable
UseLoggerRatherThanPrin It is preferable to use a logging framework rather than directly Highly
tMethods
writing to the standard output or the error output. inadvisable
UseStaticFinalLoggerForCl An attribute of the logger type must generally be declared as Highly
assesThatNeedOne
static. inadvisable

UselessOperationOnConst Calling methods on immutable objects without recovering their Highly

antObjects
return values is pointless. inadvisable
AlwaysPutDefaultCaseLas In order to be logical, we always place the <code>case Inadvisable
tInSwitch
default</code> last.
AlwaysSynchronizeAtBloc Synchronisation should be defined by a statement rather than by a Inadvisable
kLevel
method
ChangeForLoopIntoWhileL Use the clearest looping structure Inadvisable
oop
ChooseDifferentNamesFor You should avoid giving an attribute the name of its class. Inadvisable
FieldsAndClasses
ChooseDifferentNamesFor You should avoid giving local variables the names of attributes of Inadvisable
FieldsAndLocalVariables
the same class.
ChooseDifferentNamesFor You should avoid giving methods the names of attributes of the Inadvisable
FieldsAndMethods
same class.
CompareToMustBeUniver The method <code>compareTo()</code> must follow the Inadvisable
sal
signature of <code>Comparable</code>.
DontCastCollectionToDeri Inadvisable
vedCollection
DontCatchTooGeneralExc Catching exceptions with a type that is too general is not Inadvisable
eptions
recommended.
DontDeclareThrowingToo A method should never be declared with exceptions that are too Inadvisable
GeneralException
general
DontDefineHardwiredChar It is inadvisable to use elements with hard-coded characters. Inadvisable
acterLiterals
DontInstantiateClassProvi
It is pointless to instantiate a class which only contains static Inadvisable
dingOnlyStaticMethods
methods.
DontLeaveEmptyCatchBlo A catch block must never be empty. Inadvisable
cks
DontThrowTooGeneralExc We recommend that you avoid throwing exceptions that are too Inadvisable
eption
general
EqualsMustBeUniversal The equals() method must return false if the parameter is not of Inadvisable
the same type as the current object.
MakeEverySerializableCla A serializable class must be entirely composed of serializable Inadvisable
ssComponentsSerializable
classes
PreferNotifyAlltoNotifyMeth We recommend that you use the method Inadvisable
od
<code>notifyAll()</code> rather than the method
<code>notify()</code>.
PreserveStackTraceWhen An exception thrown from another exception must always store Inadvisable
ThrowingNewException
the original error stack.
ProvideStaticMethodForNo A class which cannot be instantiated must have static methods. Inadvisable
nInstantiableClasses
UseInterfaceRatherThanL It is preferable to consider generic interfaces rather than their Inadvisable
owClasses
implementations
UseStringSplitRatherThan <code>StringTokenizer</code> is on the way to becoming Inadvisable
StringTokenizer
deprecated. You should now therefore use
<code>String.split</code>
UselessDeclarationOfRun There is no point in defining <code>RuntimeException</code> as Inadvisable
TimeException
being among the exceptions that a method can throw.
AlwaysDeclareFinalFields An immutable attribute declared final, whose value is initialised on To be avoided
Static
declaration, must be declared static.
DeclareBiggerStringBuffer A <code>StringBuffer</code> should be initiated with sufficient To be avoided
ThanNeeded
capacity for the content which will be added to it.
DontDeclareMoreThanOne It is inadvisable to define several instructions in the same line. To be avoided
StatementPerLine

DontDirectlyReturnArray When a method returns an object attribute which is of the array To be avoided
type, it is preferable to return a copy of the array rather than the
direct reference.
DontDirectlyStoreArray Directly storing an array received as a parameter in an attribute To be avoided
does not keep exclusive control of the attribute because it still
remains modifiable by other classes.
DontLeaveEmptyFinallyBlo A finally block must not be left empty. To be avoided
cks
DontLeaveEmptyInitializer
Empty static initialisation blocks must be deleted. To be avoided
DontLeaveEmptyLoops Loops must never be left empty. To be avoided
DontLeaveEmptyMethods Empty methods must be commented. To be avoided
DontLeaveEmptySynchron A synchronised block must never be empty To be avoided
izedBlocks
DontLeaveEmptyTryBlock A try block must never be empty To be avoided
s
DontLeaveUnusedLocalVa Local variables must never be left unused To be avoided
riables
DontLeaveUnusedPrivateF Private attributes which are not used in classes must be deleted. To be avoided
ields
DontLeaveUnusedPrivate Private methods which are not used in classes must be deleted. To be avoided
Methods
DontNestTooManyConditio You should avoid using too many nested if structures To be avoided
nnalStatements
DontUseForWithoutUpdate Typically, within a for loop, there is an update condition To be avoided
Clause
DontUseInstanceToAcces Static methods and fields must be accessed through the class, not To be avoided
sStaticFieldsOrMethods
through an instance.
DontUsePollingLoops The use of the wait instruction is much more efficient than a test To be avoided
loop
DontUseProtectedFieldsIn As classes cannot be derived from final classes, use of the To be avoided
FinalClasses
protected keyword is pointless
DontUseTooLongDotChain Do not use chains of methods within a single instruction. To be avoided
CallsInOneStatement
ReturnEmptyArrayRatherT It is preferable to return an empty array rather than the value To be avoided
hanNull
<code>null</code>
SwitchCaseMustHaveDefa A switch instruction should always contain the To be avoided
ultStatement
<code>default</code> block.
UselessConsecutiveLiteral It is preferable to group several calls to To be avoided
Appends
<code>StringBuffer.append()</code> into a single call when
constant strings are added.
DontLeaveEmptyCtor When a constructor is empty, it is preferable to insert a comment [None]
to justify its definition.
DontLeaveUnusedImpo Needless import lines should be deleted. [None]
rts
UseBetterObjectCollecti It is preferable to use optimised <code>Collection</code> objects [None]
on rather than arrays of objects.

8.4.2 Code coverage thresholds

The following table shows the code coverage thresholds expected according to test priority (TRI). This test
priority is scaled according to five levels, based on TRI ranges:
Priority Test [TRI Min. TRI Max. [ Threshold Severity

No 0 20 0 For information
Low 20 25 60% For information
Average 25 30 70% For information
High 30 35 80% For information
Critical 35 [Infinite] 90% For information

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ICESCRUM

This document is a sample audit report produced automatically

Its purpose is to serve as a model to build custom reports,

This document is confidential and is the property of Kalistick.

Variation compared to the objective

This chart compares the current status of the project

The goal, set at the initialization of the audit,

Rate of overall non-compliance

This gauge shows the overall level of quality of the

According to the adopted configuration, a rate

This graph identifies the technical origin of

According to elements submitted for the analysis,

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 2/58

1 Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 2

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 3/58

2.1 The Quality Cockpit

2.2 The analytical

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 4/58

2.2.1 The quality factors

2.2.2 The quality domains

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 5/58

2.2.3 Severity levels

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 6/58

3.1 The quality profile

See the Quality Cockpit

3.2 The technical requirements

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 7/58

Here are the details of these technical requirements:

Domain Rule Explanation, goal and possible thresholds

are exhaustively presented in the appendix of the report (8.4.1

Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand.

The threshold for the project is:

Complexity of methods Cyclomatic complexity of a method. It measures the complexity of the

Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand, not testable and

The threshold for the project is:

Objective: avoid processing blocks difficult to understand and not testable.

The thresholds for the project are:

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 8/58

Domain Rule Explanation, goal and possible thresholds

Header documentation Identifies methods of moderate complexity which have no documentation

and number of statements exceed the thresholds defined specifically for

Objective: ensure that documentation is available in key processing blocks

The thresholds for the project are:

Detection of Duplicated blocks are invalid beyond 20 Statements

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 9/58

4.1 Project status

4.1.1 Rate of overall non-compliance

See the Quality Cockpit

- A forbidden non-compliance is detected in the class

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 10/58

4.1.2 Deviation from target

See the Quality Cockpit

Quality theme Classes Significant non-compliances % application

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 11/58

4.1.3 Origin of non-compliances

See the Quality Cockpit

Metric Value Trend

See the Quality Cockpit

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 12/58

This comparison benchmarking is proposed in relation to two categories of projects:

4.2.1 Comparison on implementation issues

See the Quality Cockpit

Confidential – This document is the property of Kalistick 13/58