A software metric that measures the number of independent execution paths through a program's source code. It counts decision points like if-statements, loops, and case statements to quantify code complexity.
Developed by Thomas McCabe Sr. in 1976, combining 'cyclomatic' (from graph theory, referring to the cycle rank of a program's control flow graph) with 'complexity.' The term draws from mathematics where cyclomatic number measures the complexity of a topological space.
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