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Concept
Source lines of code
Summary
Source lines of code (SLOC), also known as lines of code (LOC), is a software metric used to measure the size of a computer program by counting the number of lines in the text of the program's source code. SLOC is typically used to predict the amount of effort that will be required to develop a program, as well as to estimate programming productivity or maintainability once the software is produced.
Many useful comparisons involve only the order of magnitude of lines of code in a project. Using lines of code to compare a 10,000-line project to a 100,000-line project is far more useful than when comparing a 20,000-line project with a 21,000-line project. While it is debatable exactly how to measure lines of code, discrepancies of an order of magnitude can be clear indicators of software complexity or man-hours.
There are two major types of SLOC measures: physical SLOC (LOC) and logical SLOC (LLOC). Specific definitions of these two measures vary, but the most common definition of physical SLOC is a count of lines in the text of the program's source code excluding comment lines.
Logical SLOC attempts to measure the number of executable "statements", but their specific definitions are tied to specific computer languages (one simple logical SLOC measure for C-like programming languages is the number of statement-terminating semicolons). It is much easier to create tools that measure physical SLOC, and physical SLOC definitions are easier to explain. However, physical SLOC measures are more sensitive to logically irrelevant formatting and style conventions than logical SLOC. However, SLOC measures are often stated without giving their definition, and logical SLOC can often be significantly different from physical SLOC.
Consider this snippet of C code as an example of the ambiguity encountered when determining SLOC:
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) printf("hello"); /* How many lines of code is this? */
In this example we have:
1 physical line of code (LOC),
2 logical lines of code (LLOC) (for statement and printf statement),
1 comment line.
Official source
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