The total number of lines in a package. Since a package in Java is not a single unit, but spread over different files, which possibly reside in different directories, we define the total number of lines in compilation units that declare themselves to be part of a package.

The count includes everything: code as well as blank space and comments. One should therefore be careful to use this as a measure of code quality: other measures like the size of the API defined by a package are more meaningful.

Pre-packaged Query

Query name = "Metrics/Semmle/Packages/Packages that are large in terms of LOC"

Reports packages that contain more than 1000 lines of code.

from MetricPackage p, int loc
where p.fromSource() and loc = p.getNumberOfLines() and loc > 1000
select p,loc order by loc desc

.QL Source of Metric

This metric is defined in MetricPackage. The definition reads:

    int getNumberOfLines() {
       result = sum(CompilationUnit cu |
                    cu.getPackage()=this |
                    cu.getNumberOfLines())
    }

It may appear surprising that we do not use

    this.getLocation().getNumberOfLines()

(as that is the way other elements obtain the number of lines). If you try to write that in .QL, you will get a type error, because getLocation does not return a result on packages: a package does not have a source location, after all. Hence the need to sum the size of all compilation units in a package. The .QL typechecker detects such cases, thus preventing you from writing queries that are guaranteed to have no results.

References

LocMetrics. Alternative tools for counting lines of code 2006.