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

CyclomaticComplexity

Since: 0.1

Complexity is determined by the number of decision points in a method plus one for the method entry. The decision points are 'if', 'while', 'for', and 'case labels'. Generally, 1-4 is low complexity, 5-7 indicates moderate complexity, 8-10 is high complexity, and 11+ is very high complexity.

Example

// Cyclomatic Complexity = 11
class Foo {
1   public function example() {
2       if ($a == $b) {
3           if ($a1 == $b1) {
                fiddle();
4           } elseif ($a2 == $b2) {
                fiddle();
            } else {
                fiddle();
            }
5       } elseif ($c == $d) {
6           while ($c == $d) {
                fiddle();
            }
7        } elseif ($e == $f) {
8           for ($n = 0; $n < $h; $n++) {
                fiddle();
            }
        } else {
            switch ($z) {
9               case 1:
                    fiddle();
                    break;
10              case 2:
                    fiddle();
                    break;
11              case 3:
                    fiddle();
                    break;
                default:
                    fiddle();
                    break;
            }
        }
    }
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/codesize.html#cyclomaticcomplexity

A class that grows too much tends to aggregate too many responsibilities and inevitably becomes harder to understand and therefore to maintain. Above a specific threshold, it is strongly advised to refactor the class into smaller ones which focus on well defined topics.

If a private field is declared but not used in the program, it can be considered dead code and should therefore be removed. This will improve maintainability because developers will not wonder what the variable is used for.

Noncompliant Code Example

class MyClass {
  private $foo = 4;                       //foo is unused

  public function compute($a) {
    return $a * 4;
  }
}

Compliant Solution

class MyClass {

  public function compute($a) {
    return $a * 4;
  }
}

See

• CERT, MSC12-CPP. - Detect and remove code that has no effect

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

Duplicated string literals make the process of refactoring error-prone, since you must be sure to update all occurrences.

On the other hand, constants can be referenced from many places, but only need to be updated in a single place.

Noncompliant Code Example

With the default threshold of 3:

function run() {
  prepare('action1');                              // Non-Compliant - 'action1' is duplicated 3 times
  execute('action1');
  release('action1');
}

Compliant Solution

ACTION_1 = 'action1';

function run() {
  prepare(ACTION_1);
  execute(ACTION_1);
  release(ACTION_1);
}

Exceptions

To prevent generating some false-positives, literals having less than 5 characters are excluded.

Duplicated string literals make the process of refactoring error-prone, since you must be sure to update all occurrences.

On the other hand, constants can be referenced from many places, but only need to be updated in a single place.

Noncompliant Code Example

With the default threshold of 3:

function run() {
  prepare('action1');                              // Non-Compliant - 'action1' is duplicated 3 times
  execute('action1');
  release('action1');
}

Compliant Solution

ACTION_1 = 'action1';

function run() {
  prepare(ACTION_1);
  execute(ACTION_1);
  release(ACTION_1);
}

Exceptions

To prevent generating some false-positives, literals having less than 5 characters are excluded.