Theoretical validation of class cohesion metrics

Cohesion represents how well the members of a class bind together. From among several cohesion metrics, it is difficult for developers to choose a cohesion metric for a given design assessment task without validating the metric to understand its behavior under various situations. Validation can be performed theoretically or empirically. In this paper theoretical validation is carried out on cohesion metrics. The theoretical validation based on the framework of Briand et al properties. The results show that the metrics differ considerably in satisfying all the properties. Some metrics satisfy all the properties and some none.