A tool to measure Fortran source code metrics using syntax analysis

Abstract

The rapid development of software quality measurement methods, the need in efficient and versatile reengineering automatization tools becomes increasingly bigger. This becomes even more apparent when the programming language and respective coding practices slowly develop alongside each other for a long period of time, while the legacy code base grows bigger and remains highly relevant. In this paper, a source code metrics measurement tool for Fortran program quality evaluation is developed. It is implemented as a code module for Photran integrated development environment and based on a set of syntax tree walking algorithms. The module utilizes the built-in Photran syntax analysis engine and the tree data structure which it builds from the source code. The developed tool is also compared to existing source code analysis instruments. The results show that the developed tool is most effective when used in combination with Photran’s built-in refactoring system, and that Photran’s application programming interface facilitates easy scaling of the existing infrastructure by introducing other code analysis methods.

Prombles in programming 2021; 1: 26-35