PLSCOUNT

Plscount scans PL/SQL source code, counts PL/SQL tokens (exclusive of
comments and white space), and writes the total to standard output.
Synopsis:

	plscount [filename]

Plscount reads the specified file, or standard input if no file is
specified.

So why bother? If you want to know how big a module is, why not just 
count the lines of source code, or the number of bytes? 

Such crude measures may be useful, but they reflect not only the PL/SQL
code itself but also white space and comments. The results may be 
misleading. 

For example: I often find myself reworking big, messy, tangled programs.
Usually my version is significantly shorter than the original, at least
until I start adding functionality that the original author left out. 
From time to time I compare the size of my version to the size of the 
original. The growing difference is a comforting sign that I'm making 
progress. 

However, line counts and byte counts typically understate the improvement.
If I add comments or indentation, or if I break up a long line into 
several lines to make it more readable, these crude measures penalize me 
by making the source physically bigger. 

The number of tokens is more meaningful because it is not contaminated by
cosmetic factors. It is a measure -- still a crude one, to be sure -- of
complexity rather than verbosity. 

The counts produced by plscount may not be comparable to those produced 
by some other tool, because there is more than one way to count tokens. 
For example, plscount regards a string literal as a single token. Some 
other tool might count the delimiting quote marks as separate tokens.