Calculates the Efferent Coupling for a package. This is a count of the number of other packages that the classes in a package depend upon, and is an indicator of the package’s independence ([1]). This is a package-level metric.
Implemented by the org.gmetrics.metric.coupling.EfferentCouplingMetric class.
The following properties can be configured for this metric within a MetricSet. See Creating a MetricSet for information on the syntax of setting a metric property.
| Property | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
| enabled | This boolean property controls whether the metric is enabled. If set to false, then the metric is not included as part of the results or the output reports. |
true |
| functions | This List<String> property contains the names of the functions to be calculated at the method, class and package levels and (potentially) included within the report(s). Valid values are: “value” - the value for the current package; “total” - the total value for the current package and its descendant packages; “average” - the average value for the current package and its descendant packages; “referencedFromPackages” - the list of packages that reference classes within the current package. |
["value","average"] |
| ignorePackageNames | The names of packages to ignore when calculating afferent coupling. This pattern string may contain wildcard characters (‘*’ or ‘?’); it may also contain more than one pattern, separated by commas. | null |
[2] “CodeQuality for Software Architects: Use coupling metrics to support your system architecture” - Andrew Glover, part of the “In pursuit of code quality” series in developerWorks. This article includes a discussion of Efferent Coupling, among other metrics.
[3] Code Quality: The Open Source Perspective - Diomidis Spinellis. Addison Wesley, 2006.
[4] Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices - Robert C. Martin. Prentice Hall, 2002.