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

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how hard the control flow of a method is to understand. Methods with high Cognitive Complexity will be difficult to maintain.

See

• Cognitive Complexity

If the denominator to a division or modulo operation is zero it would result in a fatal error.

When working with double or float, no fatal error will be raised, but it will lead to unusual result and should be avoided anyway.

This rule supports primitive int, long, double, float as well as BigDecimal and BigInteger.

Noncompliant Code Example

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
  }
  z = 1 / z; // Noncompliant, possible division by zero
}

Compliant Solution

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
    z = 1;
  }
  z = 1 / z;
}

See

• MITRE, CWE-369 - Divide by zero
• CERT, NUM02-J. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors
• CERT, INT33-C. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors

If the denominator to a division or modulo operation is zero it would result in a fatal error.

When working with double or float, no fatal error will be raised, but it will lead to unusual result and should be avoided anyway.

This rule supports primitive int, long, double, float as well as BigDecimal and BigInteger.

Noncompliant Code Example

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
  }
  z = 1 / z; // Noncompliant, possible division by zero
}

Compliant Solution

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
    z = 1;
  }
  z = 1 / z;
}

See

• MITRE, CWE-369 - Divide by zero
• CERT, NUM02-J. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors
• CERT, INT33-C. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors

If the denominator to a division or modulo operation is zero it would result in a fatal error.

When working with double or float, no fatal error will be raised, but it will lead to unusual result and should be avoided anyway.

This rule supports primitive int, long, double, float as well as BigDecimal and BigInteger.

Noncompliant Code Example

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
  }
  z = 1 / z; // Noncompliant, possible division by zero
}

Compliant Solution

void test_divide() {
  int z = 0;
  if (unknown()) {
    // ..
    z = 3;
  } else {
    // ..
    z = 1;
  }
  z = 1 / z;
}

See

• MITRE, CWE-369 - Divide by zero
• CERT, NUM02-J. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors
• CERT, INT33-C. - Ensure that division and remainder operations do not result in divide-by-zero errors