Count Lines of Code in Your Projects with cloc

What you’ll get

You will get a detailed report showing the number of blank lines, comment lines, and actual code lines in your project files. This helps you quickly understand the size and complexity of your codebase, which is useful for project planning, tracking progress, or comparing different parts of your software.

Tools you need

• cloc (free): The main tool that counts lines of code in many programming languages.
• Perl (free): A programming language interpreter, required if you install cloc from its source code (often pre-installed on macOS/Linux).
• Docker Desktop (freemium): A platform for running software in isolated containers, offering an alternative way to run cloc without installing Perl directly.
• wget (free): A command-line tool for downloading files from the internet (needed for one example to download an archive).
• Terminal (free): The command-line interface on macOS/Linux to run commands.
• Command Prompt / PowerShell (free): The command-line interface on Windows to run commands.

Steps

1. Install cloc: Choose the installation method that suits your operating system.

   • For Windows users: Download the cloc executable. Go to the official cloc GitHub page (the site will provide the URL). Look for the “Releases” section and download the latest cloc-X.Y.exe file (e.g., cloc-2.10.exe). Rename the downloaded file to cloc.exe for easier use. Save it to a folder you can easily find, like C:\cloc.

   • For macOS/Linux users: cloc is a Perl script. Most macOS and Linux systems have Perl installed by default. Download the cloc script directly from the official cloc GitHub page (the site will provide the URL). Look for the cloc file in the main directory and download it. Save it to a convenient location, for example, ~/bin/cloc. Then, make it executable by opening your Terminal and running:

     # macOS or Linux
     chmod +x ~/bin/cloc

     You should see no output if successful. If ~/bin is not in your system’s PATH, you will need to run the script using its full path (e.g., ~/bin/cloc) or by typing perl ~/bin/cloc. For simplicity, we will use cloc in the following steps, assuming it’s either in your PATH or you are running it from the same directory after moving it there.

2. Open your terminal or command prompt:

   • For Windows: Search for “Command Prompt” or “PowerShell” in your Start menu and open it.
   • For macOS: Search for “Terminal” in Spotlight (Cmd+Space) and open it.
   • For Linux: Look for “Terminal” in your applications menu and open it. You should see a window with a blinking cursor, ready for you to type commands.

3. Navigate to your project folder: Use the cd (change directory) command to go to the folder containing the code you want to count. For example:

   # macOS or Linux
   cd ~/Projects/MyAwesomeApp

   # Windows (PowerShell)
   cd C:\Users\YourName\Documents\MyAwesomeApp

   # Windows (Command Prompt)
   cd C:\Users\YourName\Documents\MyAwesomeApp

   You should see your terminal prompt change to show the current directory you are in.

4. Count lines in a file or directory: Now you can use cloc to count your code. Remember, if you are on Windows and saved cloc.exe to C:\cloc, you might need to type C:\cloc\cloc.exe instead of just cloc if you didn’t add it to your PATH.

   • Count a single file: To count lines in a specific file, type cloc followed by the file name:

     cloc hello.c

     You should see a table showing the number of blank lines, comment lines, and actual code lines for hello.c.

   • Count a whole directory: To count all supported files in the current directory and its subfolders, type cloc followed by a dot (.):

     cloc .

     You should see a summary table for all supported files found, grouped by programming language.

   • Count a compressed archive (like a .zip file): First, you might need to download an archive. The example below downloads cloc’s own source code as a zip file:

     # macOS or Linux
     wget https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/archive/master.zip

     # Windows (PowerShell)
     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/archive/master.zip -OutFile master.zip

     You should see the master.zip file downloaded to your current directory. Then, count its contents:

     cloc master.zip

     You should see a table summarizing the code within the master.zip file, broken down by language.

Original source

This workflow is based on the cloc tool, an open-source project by AlDanial, hosted on GitHub. It provides a simple and effective way to analyze codebases by counting different types of lines across many programming languages.

Notes & variations

• Common mistake: A common pitfall is not being in the correct directory when you run cloc, or not having the cloc executable/script in a location your system can find (like your system’s PATH). Make sure you’ve navigated to your project folder using cd or provided the full path to your cloc executable.
• Tip for better results: Use cloc --help in your terminal to see all available options. You can use flags to ignore specific files or directories, specify languages, or change the output format. For example, cloc --exclude-dir=node_modules . would count code in the current directory but skip the node_modules folder.