Source code words and line counting in netbeans 7.x?

Question

I am Computer Science student and working on a project in java through netbeans 7.0.1 to be submitted in college, Today my faculty asked me how much your project is completed and i confidently replied that, Yes sir approx 50% completed already, he said how many lines u code, and i just go "Ummmm don't know exactly Sir", he replied, "Are you actually working or just buying it from somewhere!", my mind go blank!!! :D
I googled for this and found a WordCount Plugin for netbeans, but it does not working in NetBeans 7, or may be i do't know how exactly it works..
Any substitute for this WordCount available for NetBeans 7.x?
Or any other way, except manual counting of line in whole application?

• Dan Hardiker: I hope it's a trick question, as lines of code is not a good measurement of completeness or quality! Certainly not word count.
• Asif: Yeah i know, but how can i say this to my faculty??? :D
• npinti: I was thought that software is either ready or not... 50% is not really an answer... I agree with branzzy that lines of code is not a good measurement of quality, none the less completeness...
• Asif: I know the things, learning java programing from a year, i its just my first line 50%, i do not write everything here that i showed the modules that are ready , i explain the profilation, pre-complete testing and all other things, because i don't think it is important to say all here..I've just a simple question, Is there a plugin or code API through which i can count no. of words, lines etc of my code directly...i respect your suggestions but did not need here...

Answer 1

It's not part of Netbeans, but I use CLOC for this and find it does a nice job - identifies different languages well, reports on how many lines are comments, how many are code and so on.

• Asif: Thanks... this is the need of time.. :)

Answer 2

Since a 'nix-based answer has been given, in Windows you could accomplish something similar with Powershell:

get-content *.java | measure-object -line

Answer 3

If you are on a unix system the following would work:

$ find . -name *.java | xargs cat | wc
1262 2862 37780

That will merge all the files together into a stream and pass it to wc which will do various counts. The first number is the number of lines.

In the above example, my codebase (from the directory I run it) has 1262 lines.

• Dan Hardiker: I wouldn't use windows for that task. Sorry!
• Dave Newton: @Asif Consider installing cygwin, probably the easiest way to get Windows to be useful.

Answer 4

I'd like to suggest an answer to a different question:

How do I quantify progress in a programming project?

I have a preference for agile methodologies, so I would present a burn-down chart - which takes into consideration the total number of user stories/cards/tasks, the complexity/estimated time, and plots it against those remaining.

I think you need to do something simpler, but I expect simpler:

• Start by breaking your entire project down into units - tasks / bugs / areas of functionality
• Estimate the amount of effort required for each, and consider the risk + complexity
• For each unit, assess the amount it's completed - units should be small enough to be completed within a day or two at most.
• From this you can build statistics

I expect that just the act of project planning will be enough to improve your standing with your faculty as it shows a maturity in understanding there is more to a project than just the code.

• Asif: very good explanation..very helpful for me as i am a newbe..but did not solve my current question...
• Aaron: I agree that counting LOC is a waste of time, and doesn't prove anything. Identifying function points and counting progress on those is a much better indication of completeness.
• Asif: I also agreed to that, but it is just the matter of time that i just want to get the quantity of what i code, i am do not going to explain quality aspect of code by no. of lines anyways..
• Dan Hardiker: If you have done 10,000 lines of code or 20, doesn't mean you're any closer or further away from completion. It's not like essay writing!