Case study 8:CYCLOMATIC COMPLEXITY

Prateek Yadav
Roll no: 20312915037

Cyclomatic complexity is a software metric used to measure the complexity of a program's

control flow. It was developed by Thomas J. McCabe in 1976 and is often used in software
engineering to assess the maintainability and testability of software.
Cyclomatic complexity is a quantitative measure of the number of independent paths through
a program's source code.
The cyclomatic complexity of a software module is calculated based on the control flow
graph of the code, which includes the following elements:
 Nodes: These represent individual statements or decision points within the code.
 Edges: These represent the flow of control between nodes.
The formula for calculating cyclomatic complexity is as follows:
M = E - N + 2P
Where:
 M is the cyclomatic complexity.
 E is the number of edges in the control flow graph.
 N is the number of nodes in the control flow graph.
 P is the number of connected components (regions) in the graph.
The cyclomatic complexity number provides insights into the number of test cases that are
needed to achieve complete code coverage and helps in identifying areas of the code that
may be challenging to maintain.
The higher the cyclomatic complexity, the more complex the code is, which can make it
more error-prone and difficult to understand.
Generally, lower cyclomatic complexity values are desirable because they indicate simpler
and more manageable code. A cyclomatic complexity of 1 indicates a linear sequence of
code with no branching, while higher values indicate more complex control flow with loops,
conditionals, and multiple paths.
Software developers often use cyclomatic complexity as a guideline to help write code that is
easier to maintain, debug, and test, ultimately contributing to better software quality.
Various tools and static code analyzers can automatically calculate cyclomatic complexity for
different parts of a software project.

The cyclomatic complexity number provides several insights:

 Code Paths: M represents the number of independent paths through the code. Each
path is a unique sequence of statements and decision points. Higher M values
indicate more complex code with more paths to consider.
 Testing: It's often used to determine how many test cases are needed to achieve
complete code coverage. In general, a higher cyclomatic complexity implies the need
for more tests to cover all code paths.
 Maintainability: High cyclomatic complexity can indicate that a piece of code is
difficult to maintain, as it may have a complex control flow that is harder to
understand and reason about.
  Quality: Simplifying code to reduce cyclomatic complexity can lead to improved
software quality and reduced risk of defects.

Generally, it is desirable to keep cyclomatic complexity low, as simpler code is easier to
understand, maintain, and test. However, it's important to use this metric in conjunction with
other factors when evaluating code quality, as very low values can also indicate overly
simplistic code that lacks necessary logic.