How Complexity metrics are calculated by CAST AIP

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CAST Complexity Metrics

The CAST Quality Model contains various metrics that are classed as “Complexity metrics”, i.e. metrics that measure the complexity of artifacts in an application. This page contains a basic description of the mechanisms used to determine the complexity of a given artifact. CAST provides data for the following “Complexity metrics”:

Cyclomatic Complexity
Basic Cyclomatic Complexity
Essential Complexity
Integration Complexity
Cost Complexity - used in the Cost Estimation feature

How is complexity calculated?

Cyclomatic, Basic Cyclomatic, Essential, Integration

During an analysis and subsequent snapshot generation, CAST determines a complexity score for an artifact by counting the number of statements (i.e. IF, ELSE-IF, WHILE, DO etc.) it encounters - an increment of one per statement encountered is used. In addition, nested statements are also counted, which contribute to the overall complexity score.

Technical Size metrics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

AIP Core provides a number of Technical Size metrics which are designed to measure the size of specific items such as code lines, comment lines or specific artifact types. These metrics are also used by other structural rules provided by CAST. Some Technical Size result data is provided in the Health Dashboard:

A list of available Technical Size metrics is shown below - where no information is provided in the Comment column this is simply because the metric is self-explanatory.

AIP Core technical information on Documentation - V2

How Complexity metrics are calculated by CAST AIP

CAST Complexity Metrics

How is complexity calculated?

Cyclomatic, Basic Cyclomatic, Essential, Integration

Technical Size metrics