Long Message Chain (LMC)

Description:

LMC looks for a chain of delegating methods. A delegating method does not perform any action but calls the delegate method. LMC produces a warning message if the length of such a message chain is higher than the value specified by the Max call chain length property (2, by default).

Incorrect:

class Array {
    private Buffer buf;

    int size() {
        return buf.size();
    }
}

class Buffer {
    private List list;

    int size() {
        return list.size();
    }
}

class List {
    private ArrayList list;
    
    int size() {
        return list.size();
    }
}

Refactoring:

• Replace Delegation with Inheritance