Halstead complexity measures: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 05:06, 24 May 2011

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== Calculation ==

First we need to compute the following numbers, given the program:

* <math>n1\eta_1</math> = the number of distinct operators

* <math>n2\eta_2</math> = the number of distinct operands

* <math>N1N_1</math> = the total number of operators

* <math>N2N_2</math> = the total number of operands

From these numbers, five measures can be calculated:

* Program length: <math>N = N1N_1 + N2 N_2 \,</math>

* Program vocabulary: <math>n\eta = n1\eta_1 + n2 \,eta_2 </math>

* Volume: <math>V = N \times \log_2 n\eta \,</math>

* Difficulty : <math>D = { n_1\eta_1 \over 2 } \times { N_2 \over n_2\eta_2 } \,</math>

* Effort: <math>E = D *\times V \,</math>

The difficulty measure is related to the difficulty of the program to write or understand, e.g. when doing [[code review]].