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

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

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

Duplicated Code

Duplicated code can lead to software that is hard to understand and difficult to change. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle states:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

When you violate DRY, bugs and maintenance problems are sure to follow. Duplicated code has a tendency to both continue to replicate and also to diverge (leaving bugs as two similar implementations differ in subtle ways).

Tuning

This issue has a mass of 39.

We set useful threshold defaults for the languages we support but you may want to adjust these settings based on your project guidelines.

The threshold configuration represents the minimum mass a code block must have to be analyzed for duplication. The lower the threshold, the more fine-grained the comparison.

If the engine is too easily reporting duplication, try raising the threshold. If you suspect that the engine isn't catching enough duplication, try lowering the threshold. The best setting tends to differ from language to language.

See codeclimate-duplication's documentation for more information about tuning the mass threshold in your .codeclimate.yml.

Refactorings

• Extract Method
• Extract Class
• Form Template Method
• Introduce Null Object
• Pull Up Method
• Pull Up Field
• Substitute Algorithm

Further Reading

• Don't Repeat Yourself on the C2 Wiki
• Duplicated Code on SourceMaking
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Duplicated Code, p76

Duplicated Code

Duplicated code can lead to software that is hard to understand and difficult to change. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle states:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

When you violate DRY, bugs and maintenance problems are sure to follow. Duplicated code has a tendency to both continue to replicate and also to diverge (leaving bugs as two similar implementations differ in subtle ways).

Tuning

This issue has a mass of 39.

We set useful threshold defaults for the languages we support but you may want to adjust these settings based on your project guidelines.

The threshold configuration represents the minimum mass a code block must have to be analyzed for duplication. The lower the threshold, the more fine-grained the comparison.

If the engine is too easily reporting duplication, try raising the threshold. If you suspect that the engine isn't catching enough duplication, try lowering the threshold. The best setting tends to differ from language to language.

See codeclimate-duplication's documentation for more information about tuning the mass threshold in your .codeclimate.yml.

Refactorings

• Extract Method
• Extract Class
• Form Template Method
• Introduce Null Object
• Pull Up Method
• Pull Up Field
• Substitute Algorithm

Further Reading

• Don't Repeat Yourself on the C2 Wiki
• Duplicated Code on SourceMaking
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Duplicated Code, p76

This cop transforms usages of a method call safeguarded by a non nil check for the variable whose method is being called to safe navigation (&.).

Configuration option: ConvertCodeThatCanStartToReturnNil The default for this is false. When configured to true, this will check for code in the format !foo.nil? && foo.bar. As it is written, the return of this code is limited to false and whatever the return of the method is. If this is converted to safe navigation, foo&.bar can start returning nil as well as what the method returns.

Example:

# bad
foo.bar if foo
foo.bar(param1, param2) if foo
foo.bar { |e| e.something } if foo
foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something } if foo

foo.bar if !foo.nil?
foo.bar unless !foo
foo.bar unless foo.nil?

foo && foo.bar
foo && foo.bar(param1, param2)
foo && foo.bar { |e| e.something }
foo && foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

# good
foo&.bar
foo&.bar(param1, param2)
foo&.bar { |e| e.something }
foo&.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

foo.nil? || foo.bar
!foo || foo.bar

# Methods that `nil` will `respond_to?` should not be converted to
# use safe navigation
foo.to_i if foo

This cop checks for the presence of method_missing without also defining respond_to_missing? and falling back on super.

Example:

#bad
def method_missing(name, *args)
  # ...
end

#good
def respond_to_missing?(name, include_private)
  # ...
end

def method_missing(name, *args)
  # ...
  super
end

This cop is designed to help upgrade to Ruby 3.0. It will add the comment # frozen_string_literal: true to the top of files to enable frozen string literals. Frozen string literals may be default in Ruby 3.0. The comment will be added below a shebang and encoding comment. The frozen string literal comment is only valid in Ruby 2.3+.

Example: EnforcedStyle: when_needed (default)

# The `when_needed` style will add the frozen string literal comment
# to files only when the `TargetRubyVersion` is set to 2.3+.
# bad
module Foo
  # ...
end

# good
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Foo
  # ...
end

Example: EnforcedStyle: always

# The `always` style will always add the frozen string literal comment
# to a file, regardless of the Ruby version or if `freeze` or `<<` are
# called on a string literal.
# bad
module Bar
  # ...
end

# good
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Bar
  # ...
end

Example: EnforcedStyle: never

# The `never` will enforce that the frozen string literal comment does
# not exist in a file.
# bad
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Baz
  # ...
end

# good
module Baz
  # ...
end

Checks for simple usages of parallel assignment. This will only complain when the number of variables being assigned matched the number of assigning variables.

Example:

# bad
a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
a, b, c = [1, 2, 3]

# good
one, two = *foo
a, b = foo()
a, b = b, a

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

Checks for simple usages of parallel assignment. This will only complain when the number of variables being assigned matched the number of assigning variables.

Example:

# bad
a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
a, b, c = [1, 2, 3]

# good
one, two = *foo
a, b = foo()
a, b = b, a

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

This cop transforms usages of a method call safeguarded by a non nil check for the variable whose method is being called to safe navigation (&.).

Configuration option: ConvertCodeThatCanStartToReturnNil The default for this is false. When configured to true, this will check for code in the format !foo.nil? && foo.bar. As it is written, the return of this code is limited to false and whatever the return of the method is. If this is converted to safe navigation, foo&.bar can start returning nil as well as what the method returns.

Example:

# bad
foo.bar if foo
foo.bar(param1, param2) if foo
foo.bar { |e| e.something } if foo
foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something } if foo

foo.bar if !foo.nil?
foo.bar unless !foo
foo.bar unless foo.nil?

foo && foo.bar
foo && foo.bar(param1, param2)
foo && foo.bar { |e| e.something }
foo && foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

# good
foo&.bar
foo&.bar(param1, param2)
foo&.bar { |e| e.something }
foo&.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

foo.nil? || foo.bar
!foo || foo.bar

# Methods that `nil` will `respond_to?` should not be converted to
# use safe navigation
foo.to_i if foo

Checks for uses of if/unless modifiers with multiple-lines bodies.

Example:

# bad
{
  result: 'this should not happen'
} unless cond

# good
{ result: 'ok' } if cond

Checks for simple usages of parallel assignment. This will only complain when the number of variables being assigned matched the number of assigning variables.

Example:

# bad
a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
a, b, c = [1, 2, 3]

# good
one, two = *foo
a, b = foo()
a, b = b, a

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

Checks for simple usages of parallel assignment. This will only complain when the number of variables being assigned matched the number of assigning variables.

Example:

# bad
a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
a, b, c = [1, 2, 3]

# good
one, two = *foo
a, b = foo()
a, b = b, a

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

This cop checks for strings that are just an interpolated expression.

Example:

# bad
"#{@var}"

# good
@var.to_s

# good if @var is already a String
@var