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Software Engineering vocabulary · Code Review and Code Quality

Cyclomatic complexity

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In software engineering, cyclomatic complexity means: A code measure based on the number of independent paths through a program's control flow.

In Turkish: siklomatik karmaşıklık

How it is used

Used in quality reports to flag complex branching. A high score suggests review, not proof that the code is wrong.

Example sentences

  1. The function's cyclomatic complexity rose after we added six independent conditions.

    Additional decisions create more independent routes through the function.

  2. The reviewer checked cyclomatic complexity before deciding which parser method to split.

    The metric helps choose a review target but does not prescribe a particular refactoring.

Common collocations

  • measure cyclomatic complexity
  • high cyclomatic complexity
  • code smellA sign in code that suggests a deeper design problem, such as a very long function, duplicated logic or too many parameters, even if the code works.
  • refactorTo improve the structure of existing code, making it cleaner or easier to change, without changing what it does for the user.

More terms: Code Review and Code Quality

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