Content

• Introduction
• Getting started
• CQL Queries vs. CQL Constraints
• CQL and code metrics
• CQL and naming rules
• CQL and the graph of dependencies
• CQL and the graph of inheritance

Introduction

NDepend 2.0 has just been released (download it at http://www.NDepend.com). It is a free .NET tool for developers which analyses IL code and produces reports containing numerous code metrics, warnings and diagrams. The 2.0 version provides great enhancements such as an interactive view of your application and a new language dedicated to query and constraint the structure of your code: Code Query Language (CQL).

The purpose of this article is to expose some quantitative and qualitative information about the .NET framework 2.0 obtained from some CQL queries. We'll consider that the .NET 2.0 framework is made of the following 15 assemblies: System.Windows.Forms, System.Web, mscorlib, System, System.Data, System.XML, System.Deployment, System.Web.Services, System.Data.SqlXml, System.Drawing, System.Runtime.Remoting, System.Transactions, System.Messaging, System.Security, System.Drawing.Design

We choose to analyse the .NET framework 2.0 since obviously, every developers know it. However we precise that NDepend 2.0 can be used to analyse any .NET application (i.e any set of assemblies) no matter it is a console, windows form or ASP.NET application and no matter it is written with C# or VB.NET or any other .NET language.

Getting started

Let's have a first glimpse of the size of each assembly thanks to the following CQL query:

SELECT ASSEMBLIES ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC, NbNamespaces DESC, NbTypes DESC, NbMethods DESC

SELECT TOP 5 METHODS ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

SELECT METHODS WHERE NbILinstructions > 200 ORDER BY NbILinstructions

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS 
WHERE NbILinstructions > 200 ORDER BY NbILinstructions

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS 
WHERE  NbILinstructions > 200 AND !NameLike "Generated" ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS 
OUT OF NAMESPACES "MyApp.Generated1","MyApp.Generated2" 
WHERE NbILinstructions > 200 ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS 
WHERE NbILinstructions > 200 AND !(NameIs "Method1(int32)" OR FullNameIs "MyApp.MyType.Method2(String)" ) 
ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS 
OUT OF NAMESPACES "MyApp.Generated1","MyApp.Generated2" 
WHERE NbILinstructions > 200 AND !(NameIs "Method1(int32)" OR FullNameIs "MyApp.MyType.Method2(String)" ) 
AND !NameLike "Generated" ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

SELECT TOP 5 METHODS WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

SELECT TOP 5 METHODS WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY NbParameters DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY NbILinstructions DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY NbMethods DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES WHERE !IsEnumeration AND IsPublic ORDER BY NbFields DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY SizeOfInst DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES OUT OF ASSEMBLIES "System.Windows.Forms","System.Web" WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY SizeOfInst DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES ORDER BY TypeCa DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES ORDER BY TypeCe DESC

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TOP 10 TYPES 
WHERE LCOMHS > 1.0 AND NbFields > 10 AND NbMethods > 10 ORDER BY LCOMHS DESC

SELECT TOP 5 NAMESPACES ORDER BY NbTypes DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY DepthOfInheritance DESC

SELECT TOP 5 TYPES OUT OF ASSEMBLIES "System.Windows.Forms","System.Web" WHERE IsPublic ORDER BY DepthOfInheritance DESC

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TOP 5 FIELDS WHERE NameLike "^m_" AND IsStatic

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT FIELDS WHERE NameLike "^s_" AND !IsStatic

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TOP 10 TYPES WHERE IsInterface AND !NameLike "^I" AND !IsNested AND IsPublic

SELECT METHODS WHERE IsCalling "System.String.Split(Char[],int32,StringSplitOptions)" ORDER BY DepthOfIsCalling, NbILinstructions DESC

SELECT METHODS WHERE DepthOfIsCalling "System.String.Split(Char[],int32,StringSplitOptions)" == 1 ORDER BY DepthOfIsCalling

SELECT METHODS WHERE IsCalledBy "System.String.Split(Char[],int32,StringSplitOptions)" 
ORDER BY DepthOfIsCalledBy 

SELECT METHODS WHERE DepthOfCreateA "System.Diagnostics.Process" < 3 ORDER BY DepthOfCreateA

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TYPES OUT OF NAMESPACES "System.Xml" WHERE DepthOfIsUsing "System.Xml.XmlChildNodes" == 1

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT METHODS OUT OF NAMESPACES "System.Xml"
WHERE DepthOfCreateA "System.Xml.XmlLoader" == 1 ORDER BY DepthOfCreateA

WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT ASSEMBLIES WHERE !NameIs "System.Web" AND DepthOfIsUsing "System.Web.Services" == 1

SELECT TYPES WHERE DepthOfDeriveFrom "System.Windows.Forms.Control" == 1

SELECT TYPES WHERE Implement "System.ComponentModel.IComponent"