What does that title suppose to mean? Yes that’s a very outstanding number I saw that today in a project that I’m working on LocalSupport. But then I just went to the code and use Flog and I found this: 

814.0: flog total
8.1: flog/method average

60.9: main#none
35.4: ApplicationController#store_location app/controllers/application_controller.rb:6
33.5: UsersController#update app/controllers/users_controller.rb:7
33.4: namespace(jasmine)::task#ci lib/tasks/jasmine.rake:28
32.1: Organization#none
20.7: CreateOrganizationFromArray#build_organization app/models/create_organization_from_array.rb:40
18.8: OrphansController#create app/controllers/orphans_controller.rb:13
18.3: OrganizationsController#search app/controllers/organizations_controller.rb:7
18.2: namespace(jasmine)::task#server lib/tasks/jasmine.rake:55
17.8: OrganizationsController#update app/controllers/organizations_controller.rb:69
17.4: Organization::add_email app/models/organization.rb:159
17.4: Category::seed app/models/category.rb:12
17.0: Organization#update_attributes_with_admin app/models/organization.rb:50
16.9: OrganizationsController#destroy app/controllers/organizations_controller.rb:82
16.2: ApplicationHelper#smart_truncate app/helpers/application_helper.rb:3
15.3: Organization#remove_errors_with_address app/models/organization.rb:192
14.7: Address#parse app/models/address.rb:3
14.3: CSVHeader#method_missing app/models/csv_header.rb:23
13.9: Organization::import app/models/organization.rb:137
13.8: Organization#generate_potential_user app/models/organization.rb:175
13.6: OrganizationsController#create app/controllers/organizations_controller.rb:51
12.9: ApplicationController#after_sign_in_path_for app/controllers/application_controller.rb:24
12.5: ContributorsController#show app/controllers/contributors_controller.rb:6
12.3: OrganizationsController#show app/controllers/organizations_controller.rb:29

So first of all; what does flog do? Flog reports the most tortured code in an easy to read pain report. The higher the score, the more pain the code is in. So pain, we don’t like that we prefer pleasure above pain of course. So how is this report affecting my pleasure. I would like to add as much features as I can and from time to time the code do some resistance and that’s what stop me for finishing 3 features a day. So what can I do about it?

My rule of thumb is just to try to keep the numbers in the left side of the report as low as 10; if there’s something above that number probably it’s needs a check. As flog is reporting on single methods is easier to just pick one and try to get it in better shape. Let’s start with the first one the application_controller.rb in line 6: 

 def store_location
    # store last url - this is needed for post-login redirect to whatever the user last visited.
    sign_in = Regexp.new '/users/sign_in'
    sign_up = Regexp.new '/users/sign_up'
    sign_password = Regexp.new '/users/password'
    user_confirmation = Regexp.new '/users/confirmation'
    cookies_allow = Regexp.new '/cookies/allow'
    unless (sign_in =~ request.path ||
        sign_up =~ request.path ||
        user_confirmation =~ request.path ||
        sign_password =~ request.path ||
        cookies_allow =~ request.path ||
        request.xhr?) # don't store ajax calls
      session[:previous_url] = request.path
    end
  end

Pretty long method in my honest opinion; so what can we do about it. Well Long Method is a code smell and normally what I do is to just extract more smaller methods, here is the final code: 

def store_location
    # store last url - this is needed for post-login redirect to whatever the user last visited.
    sign_up = Regexp.new '/users/sign_up'
    sign_password = Regexp.new '/users/password'
    user_confirmation = Regexp.new '/users/confirmation'
    cookies_allow = Regexp.new '/cookies/allow'
    unless (sign_in =~ request.path ||
        sign_up =~ request.path ||
        user_confirmation =~ request.path ||
        sign_password =~ request.path ||
        cookies_allow =~ request.path ||
        request.xhr?) # don't store ajax calls
      session[:previous_url] = request.path
    end
  end

private 
def sign_in
   Regexp.new '/users/sign_in'
end

Basic stuff; I just used the Replace temp with query method refactor. Of course I needed to reran my specs so I did and found this: 

Devise::SessionsController POST create non-admins associated with nothing LOGS IN redirects to home page after non-admin associated with nothing logs-in
Failure/Error: post :create, 'user' => {'email' => 'example@example.com', 'password' => 'pppppppp'}
ArgumentError:
wrong number of arguments (2 for 0)
# ./app/controllers/application_controller.rb:60:in `sign_in'
# ./spec/controllers/sessions_controller_spec.rb:57:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

NOOO!!!, so I broke the test suite. What I did at this moment was just to rename the extracted method to another name and then all went green again. Good stuff; so let’s see what flog says about this refactor: 

814.0: flog total
8.1: flog/method average

60.9: main#none
36.3: ApplicationController#store_location app/controllers/application_controller.rb:6

What? I did an extract method and I got a higher flog number why is this? I start to feel pain and confirm the slogan for flog. So I went ahead and extract all the others temp variables from it: 

def store_location
     # store last url - this is needed for post-login redirect to whatever the user last visited.
     unless (sign_in_url =~ request.path ||
          sign_up_url =~ request.path ||
          user_confirmation =~ request.path ||
          sign_password =~ request.path ||
          cookies_allow =~ request.path ||
          request.xhr?) # don't store ajax calls
          session[:previous_url] = request.path
     end
end

private
def sign_in_url
     Regexp.new '/users/sign_in'
end
 
def sign_up_url
     Regexp.new '/users/sign_up'
end
 
def sign_password
     Regexp.new '/users/password'
end
 
def user_confirmation
     Regexp.new '/users/confirmation'
end
 
def cookies_allow
     Regexp.new '/cookies/allow'
end

Flog?

814.0: flog total
8.1: flog/method average

60.9: main#none
37.4: ApplicationController#store_location app/controllers/application_controller.rb:6

And then I cried. When I stopped just hitting my head I went to Flog’s site again and read a little bit. Flog is a complexity metric tool; and the temp’s did not have any type of complexity the fact that I put the temp’s values in another place just increase the visibility for flog on that method for the real problem. The conditional stuff was the real problem; so I refactor that out also: 

def store_location
# store last url - this is needed for post-login redirect to whatever the user last visited.
     unless (request_path_includes?(sign_in_url) ||
          request_path_includes?(sign_up_url) ||
          request_path_includes?(user_confirmation) ||
          request_path_includes?(sign_password) ||
          request_path_includes?(cookies_allow) ||
          request.xhr?) # don't store ajax calls
          session[:previous_url] = request.path
     end
end

private 
...

def request_path_includes?(url)
  url =~ request.path
end

Flog?

21.9: ApplicationController#store_location app/controllers/application_controller.rb:6

And the happiness and pleasure came back. 

Conclusion

Probably another person would spot the exact problem from the start; but the extraction of the temps to particular methods gave me a better glance of the entire code structure and help me figure it out the best way to compose the other method. I don’t think Code Climate is a bad tool but sometimes we need to check deeper and with others tools to keep getting our code base in shape. I hope this article helps you folks to keep getting your code in shape and just don’t felt into the trap of Code Climate’s high GPA :-P