8 Defining Custom Design Metrics and Rules

SDMetrics reads its metrics from a metric definition file. This is an XML file of the following format (for a formal definition of the file format, see Appendix E: "Project File Format Definitions"):

<sdmetrics version="2.1" ruleexemption="taggedvalue"
  exemptiontag="tagname" >
  <metric name="met1" ...> 
   <'metric definition' ...>
  </metric>
  <set ... name="set1" ...>
   <'set definition' ...>
  </set>
  <metric name="met2" ...> 
   <'metric definition' ... >
  </metric>
  <matrix name="matrix1" ...> 
   <'matrix definition' ... >
  </matrix>
  <rule name="rule1" ...> 
   <'rule definition' ... >
  </rule>
  <wordlist name="list1" ...> 
   <'wordlist definition' ... >
  </wordlist>
  <reference tag="ref1"> 
   bibliographic citation #1
  </reference>
  <term name="term1"> 
   definition of term
  </term>

  ...
</sdmetrics>

The file contains a list of definitions of metrics, as well as sets (sets of UML elements, sets of values), design rules and word lists (see Section 4.7 "The View 'Rule Checker'"), relation matrices (see Section 4.9 "The View 'Relation Matrices'"), literature reference and glossary terms. The following sections describe the definition of metrics, sets, rules, and relation matrices in detail.