Software metrics for database applications

Abstract

Known software metrics for estimating complexity and effort are usually based on lines of code or the program’s flow graph. Such metrics are suitable for large-scale procedural or object-oriented software applications, but not for small relational database business applications. In this work, we propose a new complexity metric, called DataBase Points (DBP), that is suitable for small database projects developed in the Microsoft ACCESS environment. The DBP metric is constructed from components that are derived from typical ACCESS applications. Then, DBP is used to estimate the effort needed to develop such software. The results of applying this new metric to a number of applications show that it is promising and that it captures the complexity features of small database applications.