Halstead complexity measures

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Halstead complexity measures are software metrics indroduced by Maurice Howard Halstead in 1977. These metrics are computed statically, without program execution.

[edit] Calculation

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

  • n1 = the number of distinct operators
  • n2 = the number of distinct operands
  • N1 = the total number of operators
  • N2 = the total number of operands

From these numbers, five measures can be calculated:

  • Program length:N = N1 + N2 \,
  • Program vocabulary: n = n1 + n2 \,
  • Volume: V= N \times \log_2 n \,
  • Difficulty : D= { n_1 \over 2 } \times { N_2 \over n_2 } \,
  • Effort: E= D * V \,

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

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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