Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

Checks that the cyclomatic complexity of methods is not higher than the configured maximum. The cyclomatic complexity is the number of linearly independent paths through a method. The algorithm counts decision points and adds one.

An if statement (or unless or ?:) increases the complexity by one. An else branch does not, since it doesn't add a decision point. The && operator (or keyword and) can be converted to a nested if statement, and ||/or is shorthand for a sequence of ifs, so they also add one. Loops can be said to have an exit condition, so they add one. Blocks that are calls to builtin iteration methods (e.g. `ary.map{...}) also add one, others are ignored.

def each_child_node(*types)               # count begins: 1
  unless block_given?                     # unless: +1
    return to_enum(__method__, *types)

  children.each do |child|                # each{}: +1
    next unless child.is_a?(Node)         # unless: +1

    yield child if types.empty? ||        # if: +1, ||: +1
                   types.include?(child.type)
  end

  self
end                                       # total: 6

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

Checks for the presence of constructors and lifecycle callbacks without calls to super.

This cop does not consider method_missing (and respond_to_missing?) because in some cases it makes sense to overtake what is considered a missing method. In other cases, the theoretical ideal handling could be challenging or verbose for no actual gain.

Autocorrection is not supported because the position of super cannot be determined automatically.

Object and BasicObject are allowed by this cop because of their stateless nature. However, sometimes you might want to allow other parent classes from this cop, for example in the case of an abstract class that is not meant to be called with super. In those cases, you can use the AllowedParentClasses option to specify which classes should be allowed in addition to Object and BasicObject.

Example:

# bad
class Employee < Person
  def initialize(name, salary)
    @salary = salary
  end
end

# good
class Employee < Person
  def initialize(name, salary)
    super(name)
    @salary = salary
  end
end

# bad
Employee = Class.new(Person) do
  def initialize(name, salary)
    @salary = salary
  end
end

# good
Employee = Class.new(Person) do
  def initialize(name, salary)
    super(name)
    @salary = salary
  end
end

# bad
class Parent
  def self.inherited(base)
    do_something
  end
end

# good
class Parent
  def self.inherited(base)
    super
    do_something
  end
end

# good
class ClassWithNoParent
  def initialize
    do_something
  end
end

Example: AllowedParentClasses: [MyAbstractClass]

# good
class MyConcreteClass < MyAbstractClass
  def initialize
    do_something
  end
end

Checks for rescue blocks with no body.

Example:

# bad
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
end

# bad
begin
  do_something
rescue
end

# good
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
  handle_exception
end

# good
begin
  do_something
rescue
  handle_exception
end

Example: AllowComments: true (default)

# good
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
  # do nothing
end

# good
begin
  do_something
rescue
  # do nothing
end

Example: AllowComments: false

# bad
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
  # do nothing
end

# bad
begin
  do_something
rescue
  # do nothing
end

Example: AllowNil: true (default)

# good
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
  nil
end

# good
begin
  do_something
rescue
  # do nothing
end

# good
do_something rescue nil

Example: AllowNil: false

# bad
def some_method
  do_something
rescue
  nil
end

# bad
begin
  do_something
rescue
  nil
end

# bad
do_something rescue nil