There are several tools embedded in modern IDEs (as plugins or even natively).
There are also some standalone multi-language tools.
A simple (and free) example of a tool like this is the multi-language tool named Source Monitor:
Quoting:
"The freeware program SourceMonitor lets you see inside your software source code to find out how much code you have and to identify the relative complexity of your modules. For example, you can use SourceMonitor to identify the code that is most likely to contain defects and thus warrants formal review. SourceMonitor, written in C++, runs through your code at high speed, typically at least 10,000 lines of code per second. SourceMonitor provides the following:
- Collects metrics in a fast, single pass through source files.
- Measures metrics for source code written in C++, C, C#, VB.NET, Java, Delphi, Visual Basic (VB6) or HTML.
- Includes method and function level metrics for C++, C, C#, VB.NET, Java, and Delphi.
- Offers Modified Complexity metric option.
- Saves metrics in checkpoints for comparison during software development projects.
- Displays and prints metrics in tables and charts, including Kiviat diagrams.
- Operates within a standard Windows GUI or inside your scripts using XML command files.
- Exports metrics to XML or CSV (comma-separated-value) files for further processing with other tools."
Some reasons include:
- For quickly gaining insight on some new code (to you) when entering a project
- For spotting difficult parts of the code (in terms of complexity for example), spotting refactoring candidates
- For quickly analysing some quality attributes of the code being produced by the team (as a Technical Manager or mini-team leader, for instance % of comments when compared to LOC)
- For presenting reports to the customer on specific quality attributes of the code (Kiviat Charts with KPIs and an optimal region where we would like or are obliged to have the code).
History: Added details, quote 2017-11; 2017-12-04: Minor rephrases;
