Metrics collection tools for C and C++ Source Code

This page lists various static code analysis tools that compute metrics defined on C and C++ source code. The metrics are primarily size and complexity of various types (lines of code, Halstead, McCabe, etc.).

You will need a C or C++ compiler to build most of these tools. For tools that use shell or perl scripts, you will need the appropriate interpreter to run them; these interpreters are on all unix systems.

The source files for each tool are available here. The files have been packed into Unix-style tar files, which in turn have been compressed with the GNU utility gzip.

PC users must have long file names (i.e., a win32 system) to unpack them. Note that the GNU utilities are available for the PC, and include both gunzip (uncompressing utility) and tar (unpacking utility).

Collected Tools

• c_lines (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Count lines, not counting comments, blank lines or form feeds. Does a separate count of preprocessor directives. Written by Dan Kozak around 1994. Implemented in awk.
• cccc (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A metric analyser that provides a range of potentially interesting measures for C, C++, Java, Ada-83, and Ada-95 code. Written by Tim Littlefair of Edith Cowan University, Australia. Implemented in C using PCCTS, a freely available set of compiler-construction tools.
  A far more recent version is available here: http://cccc.sourceforge.net/
• c_count (gzip'ed tarfile)
  C_COUNT counts C-language source statements, and summarizes statistics about the relative amount of commentary, whitespace, etc. Written by Thomas E. Dickey in 1991, last updated 1998. Implemented in C.
• ccount (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Counts bytes, lines, language keywords, comment bytes, semicolons, block length, nesting depth, and many more; about 77 metrics total. Written by Joerg Lawrenz in 1993. Implemented in C using yacc and lex.
• clc (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Counts total lines, noncomment lines, and statements in C/C++ source. Written by Brad Appleton in 1995. Implemented in perl.
• csize (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Counts total lines, blank lines, lines with comments, nonblank noncomment lines, semicolons, and preprocessor directives in C programs. Written by Christopher Lott in 1994. Implemented in C using lex.
• cyclo 2.0 (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Analyzes cyclomatic complexity of a piece of ANSI C or C++ code. Can generate a postscript flowgraph of the functions. Written by Roger Binns in 1993. Implemented in C++.
• hp_mas (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Mas is a maintainability assessment tool for analyzing C programs that was developed under the sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Corporate Engineering at the University of Idaho in 1992. Implemented in C.
• lc (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A tool to count lines of code in C files. Written by Brian Marick in 1983 and updated 1992. Implemented in C.
• lc2 (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A tool to count lines of code in C and C++ files. Ray Rizzuto derived this from lc (above) in 2004.
• metre 2.3 (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A rule-based software metrics tool for standard C. Written by Paul Long in 1994. Implemented in C.
• metrics (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A collection of tools (control/halstead/kdsi/mccabe). Collected and written by Brian Renaud around 1989. Implemented in C.
• sloccount (gzip'ed tarfile)
  Tools for counting lines in many (many) languages. Written by David Wheeler in 2000. Implemented in shell, perl, and C.
• spr (gzip'ed tarfile)
  A tool to measure NCSS for C source programs. Written by Ted Shapin in 1989. Implemented in C.

About building and using the tools in the collection:

I sucessfully built all of them using gcc/g++ on a sun running SunOS 4.1.3. The authors of packages `c_count', `csize', `metre', and sloccount went to considerable trouble to write portable code and flexible Makefiles. The `hp_mas' package also includes well-documented Makefiles. For `cyclo' and `metrics', no such effort was made, and consequently I had to monkey with some makefiles. Packages `ccount', `clc', `lc', and `spr' are relatively simple and should not present many problems.

Other Tools

• cncc https://sourceforge.net/projects/cncc/
  Count C/C++ source lines and bytes. Written by Alex Vinokur in 2004. Implemented in C++; PC binaries available.

I have not used all of the tools extensively, so unfortunately I can't make any helpful statements about reliability or ease of use.