Abstract

Two inheritance complexity metrics, one at class level CCI (Class Complexity due to Inheritance) and another at program level ACI (Average Complexity of a program due to Inheritance), have been proposed for object-oriented software systems. These proposed metrics are evaluated with Weyuker's properties and compared with other well known object-oriented inheritance metrics. It has been found that the proposed metrics better represent the complexity, due to inheritance, of a class and a program. Weyuker's property 7 (Significance of Permutation) has received a negative response regarding its applicability to object-oriented software metrics. It has been observed that this property is not satisfied by any of the object-oriented inheritance metrics proposed so far. Contrary to past beliefs, the relevance of this property to object-oriented systems has been brought out in this paper. Examples with C++ code are also presented to support the applicability of this property.

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Cite this article

@article{cai-1895,
  author  = {Deepti Mishra},
  title   = {New Inheritance Complexity Metrics for Object-Oriented Software Systems: An Evaluation with Weyuker's Properties},
  journal = {Computing and Informatics},
  volume  = {30},
  number  = {2},
  pages   = {267--293},
  year    = {2011},
  issn    = {1335-9150},
  url     = {https://cai.type.sk/content/2011/2/new-inheritance-complexity-metrics-for-object-oriented-software-systems-an-evaluation-with-weyukers-properties/}
}
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