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

This cop looks for uses of Perl-style regexp match backreferences like $1, $2, etc.

Example:

# bad
puts $1

# good
puts Regexp.last_match(1)

This cop checks for missing top-level documentation of classes and modules. Classes with no body are exempt from the check and so are namespace modules - modules that have nothing in their bodies except classes, other modules, or constant definitions.

The documentation requirement is annulled if the class or module has a "#:nodoc:" comment next to it. Likewise, "#:nodoc: all" does the same for all its children.

Example:

# bad
class Person
  # ...
end

# good
# Description/Explanation of Person class
class Person
  # ...
end

Checks for if and unless statements that would fit on one line if written as a modifier if/unless. The maximum line length is configured in the Metrics/LineLength cop.

Example:

# bad
if condition
  do_stuff(bar)
end

unless qux.empty?
  Foo.do_something
end

# good
do_stuff(bar) if condition
Foo.do_something unless qux.empty?

This cop checks for multi-line ternary op expressions.

Example:

# bad
a = cond ?
  b : c
a = cond ? b :
    c
a = cond ?
    b :
    c

# good
a = cond ? b : c
a =
  if cond
    b
  else
    c
  end

Checks for if and unless statements that would fit on one line if written as a modifier if/unless. The maximum line length is configured in the Metrics/LineLength cop.

Example:

# bad
if condition
  do_stuff(bar)
end

unless qux.empty?
  Foo.do_something
end

# good
do_stuff(bar) if condition
Foo.do_something unless qux.empty?

Checks that required_ruby_version of gemspec and TargetRubyVersion of .rubocop.yml are equal. Thereby, RuboCop to perform static analysis working on the version required by gemspec.

Example:

# When `TargetRubyVersion` of .rubocop.yml is `2.3`.

# bad
Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.required_ruby_version = '>= 2.2.0'
end

# bad
Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.required_ruby_version = '>= 2.4.0'
end

# good
Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.required_ruby_version = '>= 2.3.0'
end

# good
Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.required_ruby_version = '>= 2.3'
end

# good
Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
  spec.required_ruby_version = ['>= 2.3.0', '< 2.5.0']
end

Checks for if and unless statements that would fit on one line if written as a modifier if/unless. The maximum line length is configured in the Metrics/LineLength cop.

Example:

# bad
if condition
  do_stuff(bar)
end

unless qux.empty?
  Foo.do_something
end

# good
do_stuff(bar) if condition
Foo.do_something unless qux.empty?

This cop makes sure that Ruby source files have snake_case names. Ruby scripts (i.e. source files with a shebang in the first line) are ignored.

Example:

# bad
lib/layoutManager.rb

anything/usingCamelCase

# good
lib/layout_manager.rb

anything/using_snake_case.rake

This cop checks for missing top-level documentation of classes and modules. Classes with no body are exempt from the check and so are namespace modules - modules that have nothing in their bodies except classes, other modules, or constant definitions.

The documentation requirement is annulled if the class or module has a "#:nodoc:" comment next to it. Likewise, "#:nodoc: all" does the same for all its children.

Example:

# bad
class Person
  # ...
end

# good
# Description/Explanation of Person class
class Person
  # ...
end

This cop checks for uses of each_key and each_value Hash methods.

Note: If you have an array of two-element arrays, you can put parentheses around the block arguments to indicate that you're not working with a hash, and suppress RuboCop offenses.

Example:

# bad
hash.keys.each { |k| p k }
hash.values.each { |v| p v }
hash.each { |k, _v| p k }
hash.each { |_k, v| p v }

# good
hash.each_key { |k| p k }
hash.each_value { |v| p v }

This cop checks for missing top-level documentation of classes and modules. Classes with no body are exempt from the check and so are namespace modules - modules that have nothing in their bodies except classes, other modules, or constant definitions.

The documentation requirement is annulled if the class or module has a "#:nodoc:" comment next to it. Likewise, "#:nodoc: all" does the same for all its children.

Example:

# bad
class Person
  # ...
end

# good
# Description/Explanation of Person class
class Person
  # ...
end