A novel approach for collecting and sharing software metrics data

Abstract

Software metrics collection is a fundamental activity required to perform almost any empirical software engineering study. However, even if a wide range of tools exists, the collection of such fundamental data is still very time consuming. Moreover, every researcher collects almost the same data (e.g., CK metrics, McCabe Cyclomatic Complexity, etc.) from almost the same projects (e.g., well-known open source projects). The amount of such duplicate work performed in the community reduces the effort that researchers can actually spend in the most valuable part of their research such as the development of new theories and models and their empirical evaluation. This paper proposes a novel approach for collecting and sharing software metrics data enabling the cooperation of researchers and reducing the amount of wasted effort in the software engineering community. We aim at this objective through the proposal of a Software Metrics Exchange Format (SMEF) and a REST API for the collection, storage, and exchange of software metrics data.