Code to Text Ratio Checker

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About Code to Text Ratio Checker

A Code to Text Ratio Checker is a tool that measures the proportion of code versus human-readable text (such as comments, documentation, or other content) in a given file or block of code. This can be especially useful for checking the readability and maintainability of code, ensuring that it's well-documented or identifying excessive code-to-text ratios which may indicate poor documentation practices.

Here's how you might approach creating a basic Code to Text Ratio Checker in Python, along with an explanation of how it works:

Steps to Implement the Checker:

1. Input the file: The user will provide the path to a file containing code.
2. Read the file: Open the file and read its contents.
3. Classify lines: Identify whether a line contains code or text. Code lines typically include programming syntax (e.g., keywords, variables, operators), while text lines might include comments or documentation (e.g., // in C-style languages or # in Python).
4. Count the lines: Count how many lines contain code and how many contain non-code text.
5. Calculate the ratio: Calculate the ratio of code to text (code lines / text lines).
6. Return the result: Output the ratio and possibly other statistics, like total lines of code, total comments, etc.

Here’s an implementation in Python:

Python Code Example: Code to Text Ratio Checker

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import re def count_code_and_text_lines(file_path): code_lines = 0 text_lines = 0 total_lines = 0 # Define comment patterns for different languages single_line_comment = r'^\s*(//|#|--|;)' # C-style, Python, and SQL multi_line_comment_start = r'^\s*/\*' multi_line_comment_end = r'\*/\s*$' inside_multi_line_comment = False with open(file_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as file: for line in file: total_lines += 1 stripped_line = line.strip() # Skip empty lines if not stripped_line: continue # Detect multi-line comment block if inside_multi_line_comment: text_lines += 1 if re.search(multi_line_comment_end, stripped_line): inside_multi_line_comment = False continue # Detect if the line is a comment (single-line or multi-line comment) if re.search(single_line_comment, stripped_line): text_lines += 1 elif re.search(multi_line_comment_start, stripped_line): text_lines += 1 inside_multi_line_comment = True else: # Otherwise, it's considered a code line code_lines += 1 return total_lines, code_lines, text_lines def calculate_ratio(code_lines, text_lines): # Prevent division by zero if text_lines == 0: return "No text found (e.g., comments or documentation)." ratio = code_lines / text_lines return ratio def main(file_path): total_lines, code_lines, text_lines = count_code_and_text_lines(file_path) # Output the statistics print(f"Total lines: {total_lines}") print(f"Code lines: {code_lines}") print(f"Text lines (comments/documentation): {text_lines}") ratio = calculate_ratio(code_lines, text_lines) print(f"Code to Text Ratio: {ratio:.2f}") if __name__ == "__main__": file_path = input("Enter the path of the code file: ") main(file_path)

How the Code Works:

1. Regex Patterns:

   • single_line_comment matches comments in languages like Python (#), C-style (//), and SQL (--).
   • multi_line_comment_start and multi_line_comment_end are used to detect the start and end of multi-line comments (for languages like C, C++, Java, etc. where comments are enclosed in /* ... */).

2. Processing Each Line:

   • The program reads the file line by line.
   • For each line, it checks if it is a comment line or code line.
   • It keeps track of whether we're inside a multi-line comment block.
   • It counts lines that are either code or text, while ignoring empty lines.

3. Ratio Calculation:

   • After reading the file and counting the lines, the program calculates the ratio of code lines to text lines (code_lines / text_lines).
   • If there are no text lines (comments or documentation), the program avoids a division by zero error and outputs a special message.

4. Output:

   • It prints the total number of lines, code lines, text lines, and the code-to-text ratio.

Example Output

Suppose you have a Python file with 50 lines, of which 35 are code lines, and 15 are comments or documentation. The output might look like this:

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Enter the path of the code file: example.py Total lines: 50 Code lines: 35 Text lines (comments/documentation): 15 Code to Text Ratio: 2.33

This tells you that there are roughly 2.33 lines of code for every line of text (comments or documentation).

Further Improvements & Considerations

1. Handling Different Languages: You could extend the comment detection to handle more languages and more complex comment structures, such as block comments inside strings or complex preprocessor directives.

2. Stripped Code: You might also want to strip away white space from the code to detect lines that are technically code but might be indented or contain only whitespace.

3. Ignore Specific Text: If you want to exclude docstrings in Python or other forms of inline documentation that shouldn't count as "text," you could adjust the regular expressions or add more sophisticated parsing logic.

4. CLI Options: You can expand this tool to accept command-line arguments using argparse for more flexible usage (e.g., to check multiple files or output in different formats).

5. File Formats: The current implementation assumes you're working with plain text files. If you're dealing with special file formats (like .pyc or .class), you'll need to handle binary files differently.

Conclusion

This basic Code to Text Ratio Checker provides a simple way to analyze the readability and documentation level of your code. It can help ensure that there is an appropriate balance between code and comments, improving the clarity and maintainability of the codebase. With further enhancements, this tool could become more robust and applicable to a wider range of programming languages and file types.