Question

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How many lines of code should a function/procedure/method have?

I would like to know how many lines of code should be function have? How many lines is too much.

I read this a while back, it around 10 or 20 lines but it was because the screen would only accommodate so many lines. Now as the screen size become larger, that would not hold true.

Let’s assume that the no part of the function is used anywhere else i.e. disregard DRY principle.

I’d like to hear what others have to say about this.

thanks.

Note: Duplicate of When is a function too long?, could not find it when I posted.

Answer 1

This kind of question is well answered in Code Complete. Steve McConnel wrote an entire page to answer this question. His conclusion:

Decades of evidence say that routines
of such length (>100 lines) are no
more error prone than shorter
routines. Let issues such as the
routine’s cohesion, number of decision
points, number of comments needed to
explain the routine, and other
complexity-related considerations
dictate the length of the routine
rather than imposing a length
restriction per se. That said, if you
want to write routines longer than
about 200 lines, be careful.