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

UnusedPrivateMethod

Since: 0.2

Unused Private Method detects when a private method is declared but is unused.

Example

class Something
{
    private function foo() {} // unused
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/unusedcode.html#unusedprivatemethod

UnusedPrivateMethod

Since: 0.2

Unused Private Method detects when a private method is declared but is unused.

Example

class Something
{
    private function foo() {} // unused
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/unusedcode.html#unusedprivatemethod

ElseExpression

Since: 1.4.0

An if expression with an else branch is basically not necessary. You can rewrite the conditions in a way that the else clause is not necessary and the code becomes simpler to read. To achieve this, use early return statements, though you may need to split the code it several smaller methods. For very simple assignments you could also use the ternary operations.

Example

class Foo
{
    public function bar($flag)
    {
        if ($flag) {
            // one branch
        } else {
            // another branch
        }
    }
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/cleancode.html#elseexpression

UnusedPrivateMethod

Since: 0.2

Unused Private Method detects when a private method is declared but is unused.

Example

class Something
{
    private function foo() {} // unused
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/unusedcode.html#unusedprivatemethod

ElseExpression

Since: 1.4.0

An if expression with an else branch is basically not necessary. You can rewrite the conditions in a way that the else clause is not necessary and the code becomes simpler to read. To achieve this, use early return statements, though you may need to split the code it several smaller methods. For very simple assignments you could also use the ternary operations.

Example

class Foo
{
    public function bar($flag)
    {
        if ($flag) {
            // one branch
        } else {
            // another branch
        }
    }
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/cleancode.html#elseexpression

Programmers should not comment out code as it bloats programs and reduces readability.

Unused code should be deleted and can be retrieved from source control history if required.

See

• MISRA C:2004, 2.4 - Sections of code should not be "commented out".
• MISRA C++:2008, 2-7-2 - Sections of code shall not be "commented out" using C-style comments.
• MISRA C++:2008, 2-7-3 - Sections of code should not be "commented out" using C++ comments.
• MISRA C:2012, Dir. 4.4 - Sections of code should not be "commented out"

Shadowing fields with a local variable is a bad practice that reduces code readability: it makes it confusing to know whether the field or the variable is being used.

Noncompliant Code Example

class Foo {
  public $myField;

  public function doSomething() {
    $myField = 0;
    ...
  }
}

See

• CERT, DCL51-J. - Do not shadow or obscure identifiers in subscopes

Shadowing fields with a local variable is a bad practice that reduces code readability: it makes it confusing to know whether the field or the variable is being used.

Noncompliant Code Example

class Foo {
  public $myField;

  public function doSomething() {
    $myField = 0;
    ...
  }
}

See

• CERT, DCL51-J. - Do not shadow or obscure identifiers in subscopes

If you throw a general exception type, such as ErrorException, RuntimeException, or Exception in a library or framework, it forces consumers to catch all exceptions, including unknown exceptions that they do not know how to handle.

Instead, either throw a subtype that already exists in the Standard PHP Library, or create your own type that derives from Exception.

Noncompliant Code Example

throw new Exception();  // Noncompliant

Compliant Solution

throw new InvalidArgumentException();
// or
throw new UnexpectedValueException();

See

• MITRE, CWE-397 - Declaration of Throws for Generic Exception
• CERT, ERR07-J. - Do not throw RuntimeException, Exception, or Throwable

Shadowing fields with a local variable is a bad practice that reduces code readability: it makes it confusing to know whether the field or the variable is being used.

Noncompliant Code Example

class Foo {
  public $myField;

  public function doSomething() {
    $myField = 0;
    ...
  }
}

See

• CERT, DCL51-J. - Do not shadow or obscure identifiers in subscopes