Table of Contents

Complexity
Design
Documentation
Duplications
Reviews
Rules
SCM
SQALE
Size
Tests

Complexity

Name

Key

Description

Complexity

It is the cyclomatic complexity, also known as McCabe metric. Whenever the control flow of a method splits, the complexity counter gets incremented by one.
Each method has a minimum value of 1 per default.

More details...

Language

Keywords incrementing the complexity

Java

Notes:

else, default, and finally keywords do not increment the complexity. On the other hand, a simple method with a switch statement and a huge block of case statements can have a surprisingly high complexity value (still it has the same value when converting a switch block to an equivalent sequence of if statements).
accessors are not considered as methods and so do not increment the complexity

Example: the following method has a complexity of 5

Complexity /class

class_complexity

Average complexity by class.

Complexity /file

file_complexity

Average complexity by file.

Complexity /method

function_complexity

Average complexity by method.

Design

Name

Key

Description

Afferent couplings

ca

A class afferent couplings is a measure of how many other classes use the specific class.

Depth in Tree

dit

The depth of inheritance tree (DIT) metric provides for each class a measure of the inheritance levels from the object hierarchy top.

More details...

Language	Note
Java	As every class inherits from Object, the minimum value of DIT is 1.

Efferent couplings

ce

A class efferent couplings is a measure of how many different classes are used by the specific class.

File cycles

file_cycles

Minimal number of file cycles detected inside a package to be able to identify all undesired dependencies.

File edges weight

file_edges_weight

Number of file dependencies inside a package.

File dependencies to cut

package_tangles

Number of file dependencies to cut in order to remove all cycles between packages.

File tangle

file_tangles

File tangle = Suspect file dependencies

File tangle index

file_tangle_index

File tangle index = 2 * (File tangle / File edges weight) * 100.

LCOM4

lcom4

Lack of cohesion of methods. See LCOM4 documentation page.

Number of children

noc

The number of children of a class is the number of direct and indirect descendants of this class.

Package cycles

package_cycles

Minimal number of package cycles detected to be able to identify all undesired dependencies.

Package dependencies to cut

package_feedback_edges

Number of package dependencies to cut in order to remove all cycles between packages.

Package tangle index

package_tangle_index

Level of tangle of the packages. Best value (0%) means that there is no cycle and worst value (100%) means that packages are really tangled. This metric is computed with the following formula: 2 * (File dependencies to cut / Number of file dependencies between packages) * 100.

Response for class

rfc

See RFC documentation page.

Package edges weight

package_edges_weight

Number of file dependencies between packages.

Suspect file dependencies

file_feedback_edges

File dependencies to cut in order to remove cycles between files inside a package. Note that cycles between files inside a package does not always mean a bad quality architecture.

Suspect LCOM4 density

Density of files having a LCOM4 density greater than 1.

Documentation

Name

Key

Description

Blank comments

Number of non-significant comment lines (empty comment line, comment line containing only special characters, etc.).

Comment lines

comment_lines

Number of single-comment of multi-comment lines. Comment lines like file headers (mainly used to define license) are not included.

More details...

Language	Note
Cobol	Lines containing the following instructions are counted both as comments and lines of code: AUTHOR, INSTALLATION, DATE-COMPILED, DATE-WRITTEN, SECURITY.

Comments (%)

comment_lines_density

Density of comment lines = Comment lines / (Lines of code + Comment lines) * 100

With such a formula:

50% means that the number of lines of code equals the number of comment lines
100% means that the file only contains comment lines

Comments in Procedure Divisions

Comments in Procedure divisions (Cobol only)

Public documented API (%)

public_documented_api_density

Density of public documented API = (Public API - Public undocumented API) / Public API * 100

Public undocumented API

public_undocumented_api

Public API without comments header.

Duplications

Name	Key	Description
Duplicated blocks	duplicated_blocks	Number of duplicated blocks of lines.
Duplicated files	duplicated_files	Number of files involved in a duplication.
Duplicated lines	duplicated_lines	Number of lines involved in a duplication.
Duplicated lines (%)	duplicated_lines_density	Density of duplication = Duplicated lines / Lines * 100

Reviews

Name	Key	Description
Active reviews		Number of active reviews (status not closed).
False-positive reviews		Number fo false-positive reviews.
New unreviewed violations		Number of new unreviewed violations.
Unassigned reviews		Number of unassigned reviews.
Unplanned reviews		Number of unplanned reviews (not associated with an action plan).
Unreviewed violations		Number of unreviewed violations.

Rules

Name	Key	Description
New violations	new_violations	Number of new violations.
New xxxxx violations	new_xxxxx_violations	Number of new violations with severity xxxxx, xxxxx being Blocker, Critical, Major, Minor or Info.
Violations	violations	Number of violations.
xxxxx violations	xxxxx_violations	Number of violations with severity xxxxx, xxxxx being Blocker, Critical, Major, Minor or Info.
Weighted violations	weighted_violations	Sum of the violations weighted by the coefficient associated to each severity (Sum(xxxxx_violations * xxxxx_weight)). To set the weight of each severity, log in as an administrator, go to Settings > Configuration > General Settings > General and set the Rules weight property.
Rules compliance	violations_density	Rules compliance index (RCI) = 100 - (Weighted violations / Lines of code * 100)

SCM

Name	Key	Qualitative	Description
Authors by line	authors_by_line	no	The last committer on each line of code.

Note that this metric is made available by the SCM Activity plugin.

SQALE

Metric	Key	Description
Blocker Remediation Cost		Remediation cost (in days) to fix all blocker violations.
Critical and over Remediation Cost		Remediation cost (in days) to fix all critical and blocker violations.
Effort to grade X		Effort (in days) to reach grade X.
Major and over Remediation Cost		Remediation cost (in days) to fix all major and critical and blocker violations.
Minor and over Remediation Cost		Remediation cost (in days) to fix all minor and major and critical and blocker violations.
SQALE Remediation Cost		Remediation cost (in days) to fix all violations.

Note that these metrics are made available by the SQALE plugin.

Size

Metric

Key

Description

Accessors

accessors

Number of getter and setter methods used to get (reading) or set (writing) a class property.

More details...

Language	Note
Java	Getters Setters

Classes

classes

Number of classes (including nested classes, interfaces, enums and annotations).

Directories

directories

Number of directories.

Files

files

Number of files.

Generated Lines

Number of lines generated by Cobol code generators like CA-Telon.

Generated lines of code

Number of lines of code generated by Cobol code generators like CA-Telon.

Inside Control Flow Statements

(Cobol only)

Lines

lines

Number of physical lines (number of carriage returns).

Lines of code

ncloc

Number of physical lines that contain at least one character which is neither a whitespace or a tabulation or part of a comment.

More details...

Language	Note
Cobol	Generated lines of code and pre-processing instructions (SKIP1, SKIP2, SKIP3, COPY, EJECT, REPLACE) are not counted as lines of code.

LOCs in Data Divisions

Number of lines of code in Data divisions (Cobol only).

LOCs in Procedure Divisions

Number of lines of code in Procedure divisions (Cobol only).

Methods

functions

Number of methods.

More details...

Language	Note
Cobol	It is the number of paragraphs.
Java	Accessors are considered as methods if the sonar.squid analyse.property.accessors is set to false Constructors are considered as methods

Outside Control Flow Statements

(Cobol only)

Packages

packages

Number of packages.

Projects

projects

Number of projects in a view.

Public API

public_api

Number of public Classes + number of public Methods + number of public Properties

More details...

Language	Note
Java	Number of public properties but without public final static ones.

Statements

statements

Number of statements.

More details...

Language

Note

Java

Number of statements as defined in the Java Language Specification but without block definitions. Statements counter gets incremented by one each time a following keyword is encountered: if, else, while, do, for, switch, break, continue, return, throw, synchronized, catch, finally.

Statements counter is not incremented by a class, method, field, annotation definition, package declaration and import declaration.

Tests

Metric	Key	Description
Branch coverage	branch_coverage	On each line of code containing some boolean expressions, the branch coverage simply answers the following question: 'Has each boolean expression been evaluated both to true and false?'. This is the density of possible branches in flow control structures that have been followed during unit tests execution.
Coverage	coverage	It is a mix of Line coverage and Branch coverage. Its goal is to provide an even more accurate answer to the following question: 'How much of the source code has been covered by the unit tests?".
Line coverage	line_coverage	On a given line of code, Line coverage simply answers the following question: 'Has this line of code been executed during the execution of the unit tests?'. It is the density of covered lines by unit tests:
Lines to cover	lines_to_cover	Number of lines of code which could be covered by unit tests (for example, blank lines or full comments lines are not considered as lines to cover).
New branch coverage	new_branch_coverage	Identical to Branch coverage but restricted to new / updated source code.
New coverage	new_coverage	Identical to Coverage but restricted to new / updated source code.
New line coverage	new_line_coverage	Identical to Line coverage but restricted to new / updated source code.
New lines to cover	new_lines_to_cover	Identical to Lines to cover but restricted to new / updated source code.
New uncovered lines	new_uncovered_lines	Identical to Uncovered lines but restricted to new / updated source code.
Skipped unit tests	skipped_tests	Number of skipped unit tests.
Uncovered branches	uncovered_branches	Number of branches which are not covered by unit tests.
Uncovered lines	uncovered_lines	Number of lines of code which are not covered by unit tests.
Unit tests	tests	Number of unit tests.
Unit tests duration	test_execution_time	Time required to execute all the unit tests.
Unit test errors	test_errors	Number of unit tests that have failed.
Unit test failures	test_failures	Number of unit tests that have failed with an unexpected exception.
Unit test success density (%)	test_success_density	Test success density = (Unit tests - (Unit test errors + Unit test failures)) / Unit tests * 100

The same kinds of metrics exist for Integration tests coverage and Overall tests coverage (Units tests + Integration tests).

Metrics on tests execution does not exist for Integration tests and Overall tests.