Computation of logical effort in high level languages

A new measure of software complexity is introduced, that of logical effort. This measure is an attempt to quantify program complexity by an analysis of the control structure of the program, using the concepts of language virtuality and segment independence. A program is decomposed by the use of these concepts until measurements can be made at the statement level. These measurements, along with measurements of I, the effort necessary to perform a loop, and Q, the effort necessary to determine which branch to take in a decision, are then used to calculate recursively the effort in larger and larger structures, until the program level is reached. An example of this process is given for a short program, along with a brief comparison of the results obtained with a similar measure, that of cyclomatic complexity.

Algorithms for the computation of I and Q are also given, along with examples of their calculation. This process is essentially a decomposition of a Boolean function into disjunctive normal form, followed by a minimization of the form using a weighting measure involving weights on both the operators and the variables in the function.