Measuring triggering-interaction complexity on active databases

Distinct software metrics have been proposed for programs. By contrast, met rics for databases have been neglected on the grounds that databases were m ere plain files that do not affect considerably information systems maintai nability. However, later enhancements on database systems have considerable increase the complexity of the elements kept within the database realm. Su ch complexity makes metrics a valuable tool to understand, monitor, control , predict and improve software development and maintenance database project s. Triggers are a case in point. Several reports warned about the difficult ies to cope with large sets of triggers. Based on the difficulty to ascerta in the causes that make a given rule to be triggered, this paper proposes t hree different metrics for measuring trigger complexity, namely, the trigge ring potential, the number of anchors and the distance of a trigger. These measures are characterised above the level of the ordinal scale using the m easurement theory. Validation of the proposed metrics has been conducted th rough a set of empirical experiments. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Scienc e Ltd.