SonarQube JavaScript Cyclomatic Complexity Calculation

[chris....@wellcentive.com]

Hey,

I noticed that nested functions in JavaScript increment cyclomatic complexity of the parent function by 1, but that the parent function also includes the complexity of the nested functions. I don't think this should be the case.

They do not fit the definition of cyclomatic complexity which includes only control-flow statements.

In many cases, JavaScript functions are more analogous to classes in how they are used. Especially in frameworks such as AngularJS, they are used this way. Being a dependency of the UI, most of the nested functions in these are declarations for very simple tasks like switching a boolean on/off or formatting the model to be presented a certain way. If we adhere to normal cyclomatic complexity 10, you end up with a cumbersome FizzBuzz disaster.

Please consider changing the way cyclomatic complexity is computed in JavaScript. Cyclomatic complexity is a good tool for limiting complexity, encouraging maintainability, and facilitating readability, but this particular nuance does not support these three goals and causes more problems than it solves.

Thanks,

Chris

[Elena Vilchik]

Hello,

Really this is a hot topic since this behaviour was introduced. I hope it will be changed in next version of plugin (ticket https://jira.sonarsource.com/browse/SONARJS-729)

Thanks for the feedback!

Elena VILCHIK | SonarSource
Language Team

http://sonarsource.com