.. _library_code_metrics:

``code_metrics``
================

The purpose of this tool is to assess qualities of source code that may
predict negative aspects such as entity coupling, cohesion, complexity,
error-proneness, and overall maintainability. It is meant to be
extensible via the addition of objects implementing new metrics.

This tool provides predicates for computing metrics for source files,
entities, libraries, files, and directories. The actual availability of
a particular predicate depends on the specific metric. A set of
predicates prints, by default, the computed metric values to the
standard output. A second set of predicates computes and returns a score
(usually a compound term with the computed metric values as arguments).

API documentation
-----------------

This tool API documentation is available at:

`../../docs/library_index.html#code-metrics <../../docs/library_index.html#code-metrics>`__

Loading
-------

This tool can be loaded using the query:

::

   | ?- logtalk_load(code_metrics(loader)).

Testing
-------

To test this tool, load the ``tester.lgt`` file:

::

   | ?- logtalk_load(code_metrics(tester)).

Available metrics
-----------------

Currently, the following metrics are provided:

- Number of Clauses (``noc_metric``)
- Number of Rules (``nor_metric``)
- Unique Predicate Nodes (``upn_metric``)
- Cyclomatic Complexity (``cc_metric``)
- Depth of Inheritance (``dit_metric``)
- Efferent coupling, afferent coupling, instability, and abstractness
  (``coupling_metric``)
- Documentation (``doc_metric``)
- Source code size (``size_metric``)
- Halstead complexity (``halstead_metric`` and
  ``halstead_metric(Stroud)``)

A helper object, ``code_metrics``, is also provided, allowing running
all loaded individual metrics. For code coverage metrics, see the
``lgtunit`` tool documentation.

Coupling metrics
----------------

- Efferent coupling (``Ce``): Number of entities that an entity depends
  on. These include objects receiving messages from the entity, plus the
  implemented protocols, imported categories, and
  extended/instantiated/specialized objects.

- Afferent coupling (``Ca``): Number of entities that depend on an
  entity. For a protocol, the number of protocols that extend it, plus
  the number of objects and categories that implement it. For a
  category, the number of objects that import it. For an object, the
  number of categories and objects that send messages to it plus the
  number of objects that extend/instantiate/specialize it.

- Instability: Computed as ``Ce / (Ce + Ca)``. Measures an entity
  resilience to change. Ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 indicating a
  maximally stable entity and 1.0 indicating a maximally unstable
  entity. Ideally, an entity is either maximally stable or maximally
  unstable.

- Abstractness: Computed as the ratio between the number of static
  predicates with scope directives without a local definition and the
  number of static predicates with scope directives. Measures the
  rigidity of an entity. Ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 indicating a
  fully concrete entity and 1.0 indicating a fully abstract entity.

The dependencies count includes direct entity relations plus predicate
calls or dynamic updates to predicates in external objects or
categories.

For more information on the interpretation of the coupling metric
scores, see, e.g., the original paper by Robert Martin:

::

   @inproceedings{citeulike:1579528,
       author = "Martin, Robert",
       booktitle = "Workshop Pragmatic and Theoretical Directions in Object-Oriented Software Metrics",
       citeulike-article-id = 1579528,
       citeulike-linkout-0 = "http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/oodmetrc.pdf",
       keywords = "diplomarbeit",
       organization = "OOPSLA'94",
       posted-at = "2007-08-21 11:08:44",
       priority = 0,
       title = "OO Design Quality Metrics - An Analysis of Dependencies",
       url = "http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/oodmetrc.pdf",
       year = 1994
   }

The coupling metric was also influenced by the metrics rating system in
Microsoft Visual Studio and aims to eventually emulate the functionality
of a maintainability index score.

Halstead metric
---------------

Predicates declared, user-defined, and called are interpreted as
*operators*. Built-in predicates and built-in control constructs are
ignored. Predicate arguments are abstracted, assumed distinct, and
interpreted as *operands*. Note that this definition of operands is a
significant deviation from the original definition, which used syntactic
literals. A computation closer to the original definition of the metric
would require switching to use the parser to collect information on
syntactic literals, which would imply a much larger computation cost.
The number of predicate calls doesn't include calls to built-in
predicates and can underestimate recursive calls.

The computation of this metric is parameterized by the *Stroud*
coefficient for computing the time required to program (default is 18).
The following individual measures are computed:

- Number of distinct predicates (declared, defined, called, or updated;
  ``Pn``).
- Number of predicate arguments (assumed distinct; ``PAn``).
- Number of predicate calls/updates + number of clauses (``Cn``).
- Number of predicate call/update arguments + number of clause head
  arguments (``CAn``).
- Entity vocabulary (``EV``). Computed as ``EV = Pn + PAn``.
- Entity length (``EL``). Computed as ``EL = Cn + CAn``.
- Volume (``V``). Computed as ``V = EL * log2(EV)``.
- Difficulty (``D``). Computed as ``D = (Pn/2) * (CAn/An)``.
- Effort (``E``). Computed as ``E = D * V``.
- Time required to program (``T``). Computed as ``T = E/k`` seconds
  (where ``k`` is the Stroud number; defaults to 18).
- Number of delivered bugs (``B``). Computed as ``B = V/3000``.

UPN metric
----------

The Unique Predicate Nodes (UPN) metric is described in the following
paper:

::

   @article{MOORES199845,
       title = "Applying Complexity Measures to Rule-Based Prolog Programs",
       journal = "Journal of Systems and Software",
       volume = "44",
       number = "1",
       pages = "45 - 52",
       year = "1998",
       issn = "0164-1212",
       doi = "https://doi.org/10.1016/S0164-1212(98)10042-0",
       url = "http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121298100420",
       author = "Trevor T Moores"
   }

The nodes include called and updated predicates independently of where
they are defined. It also includes multifile predicates contributed to
other entities.

Cyclomatic complexity metric
----------------------------

The cyclomatic complexity metric evaluates an entity code complexity by
measuring the number of linearly independent paths through the code. In
its current implementation, all defined predicates that are not called
or updated are counted as graph-connected components (the reasoning
being that these predicates can be considered entry points). The
implementation uses the same predicate abstraction as the UPN metric.
The defined predicates include multifile predicate definitions
contributed by the entity to other entities.

For more details on this metric, see the original paper by Thomas J.
McCabe:

::

   @inproceedings{McCabe:1976:CM:800253.807712,
       author = "McCabe, Thomas J.",
       title = "A Complexity Measure",
       booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2Nd International Conference on Software Engineering",
       series = "ICSE '76",
       year = 1976,
       location = "San Francisco, California, USA",
       pages = "407--",
       url = "http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800253.807712",
       acmid = 807712,
       publisher = "IEEE Computer Society Press",
       address = "Los Alamitos, CA, USA",
       keywords = "Basis, Complexity measure, Control flow, Decomposition, Graph theory, Independence, Linear, Modularization, Programming, Reduction, Software, Testing",
   }

Usage
-----

All metrics require the source code to be analyzed to be loaded with the
``source_data`` flag turned on. For usage examples, see the
``SCRIPT.txt`` file in the tool directory.

Be sure to fully understand the metrics individual meanings and any
implementation limitations before using them to support any evaluation
or decision process.

Excluding code from analysis
----------------------------

A set of options is available to specify code that should be excluded
when applying code metrics:

- | ``exclude_directories(Directories)``
  | list of directories to exclude (default is ``[]``); all
    sub-directories of the excluded directories are also excluded;
    directories may be listed by full or relative path

- | ``exclude_files(Files)``
  | list of source files to exclude (default is ``[]``); files may be
    listed by full path or basename, with or without extension

- | ``exclude_libraries(Libraries)``
  | list of libraries to exclude (default is
    ``[startup, scratch_directory]``)

- | ``exclude_entities(Entities)``
  | list of entities to exclude (default is ``[]``)

Defining new metrics
--------------------

New metrics can be implemented by defining an object that imports the
``code_metric`` category and implements its score predicates. There is
also a ``code_metrics_utilities`` category that defines useful
predicates for the definition of metrics.

Third-party tools
-----------------

The following open-source command-line programs can count blank lines,
comment lines, and lines of source code in many programming languages,
including Logtalk:

- ``cloc`` - https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc

- ``ohcount`` - https://github.com/blackducksoftware/ohcount

- ``tokei`` - https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei

Applying metrics to Prolog modules
----------------------------------

Some of the metrics can also be applied to Prolog modules that Logtalk
is able to compile as objects. For example, if the Prolog module file is
named ``module.pl``, try:

::

   | ?- logtalk_load(module, [source_data(on)]).

Due to the lack of standardization of module systems and the abundance
of proprietary extensions, this solution is not expected to work for all
cases.

Applying metrics to plain Prolog code
-------------------------------------

Some of the metrics can also be applied to plain Prolog code. For
example, if the Prolog file is named ``code.pl``, simply define an
object including its code:

::

   :- object(code).
       :- include('code.pl').
   :- end_object.

Save the object to an e.g. ``code.lgt`` file in the same directory as
the Prolog file and then load it in debug mode:

::

   | ?- logtalk_load(code, [source_data(on)]).

In alternative, use the ``object_wrapper_hook`` provided by the
``hook_objects`` library:

::

   | ?- logtalk_load(hook_objects(loader)).
   ...

   | ?- logtalk_load(code, [hook(object_wrapper_hook), source_data(on)]).

With either wrapping solution, pay special attention to any compilation
warnings that may signal issues that could prevent the plain Prolog code
from working when wrapped by an object.
