How is Cyclomatic Complexity calculated?

  • Updated

Cyclomatic complexity in CodeScan is calculated by the number of decision points in a method.  

For example, the below method would have a cyclomatic complexity of 5.

   public void newMethod() {
     for(Integer i = 0; i < 100; i++){
      if (a == b && b == c){
        doStuff();
      } else if(a != b) {
        doOtherStuff();
      }
     }
   }

 This counts:

  1. The entry to the method
  2. The entry to the for loop
  3. The if statement and the first conditional
  4. The second conditional in the if statement
  5. The elseif statement

This does not include:

  • else statements
  • when else in switch statements

The cyclomatic complexity for a class will be the average complexity between all methods in that class.