Friend Methods

API ID: CountDeclMethodFriend
Also Known As: Number of Friend Methods (NFM), Number of Friends (NF)
Languages: C++
Targets: Classes

Number of local (not inherited) friend methods.

The number of friend functions plus the Methods of any friend classes.

For example:

class FriendDemo {
  friend class CohesionClass;

  friend void init();

};

class CohesionClass {
public:
  void func1() {
    for (int i = 0; i < mVar1; i++) {
      mVar2 = nullptr;
    }
    mVar1 = 3;
  }

  void func2() {
    mVar1 = 4;
  }

  static void addObj() {
    sNumObjs ++;
  }
protected:

  void func3() {
    mVar2 = "blue";
  }
private:

  void func4() {

  }

  int mVar1;
  char * mVar2;
  static int sNumObjs;
};

FriendDemo declares one friend function, init(), and one friend class, CohesionClass. CohesionClass itself has 5 local methods (func1, func2, func3, func4, addObj), i.e. CountDeclMethod = 5 for CohesionClass. So FriendDemo's CountDeclMethodFriend = 1 + 5 = 6 — the friend function plus all of the friend class's own methods, not just the ones that actually use FriendDemo.

See Methods for a class's own local method count, which is what gets added in for each friend class, and the Friend References interactive report to see how, if at all, a given friend actually uses that access.

Also known as Lorenz & Kidd - Number of Friends (NF); Number of Friend Methods (NFM).

Targets By Language:

• C++: Class, Struct, Union

Configuration:

• This metric can be disabled from "Project Configuration/Metrics/Object Orientated" with the "Show method and variable count metrics" option.