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Coupling and Cohesion

Coupling and cohesion are measures of the quality of modular design. Cohesion refers to the interdependence of elements within a module - the highest form is functional cohesion. Coupling measures the interdependence between modules - the lowest levels are best. There are seven types of cohesion and five levels of coupling. Modularization divides a program into independent, discrete modules to improve maintainability, reuse, and other advantages through a divide and conquer approach.

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Debadatta Gadanayak
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209 views2 pages

Coupling and Cohesion

Coupling and cohesion are measures of the quality of modular design. Cohesion refers to the interdependence of elements within a module - the highest form is functional cohesion. Coupling measures the interdependence between modules - the lowest levels are best. There are seven types of cohesion and five levels of coupling. Modularization divides a program into independent, discrete modules to improve maintainability, reuse, and other advantages through a divide and conquer approach.

Uploaded by

Debadatta Gadanayak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Coupling and Cohesion

When a software program is modularized, its tasks are divided into several modules
based on some characteristics. As we know, modules are set of instructions put
together in order to achieve some tasks. They are though, considered as single entity
but may refer to each other to work together. There are measures by which the quality
of a design of modules and their interaction among them can be measured. These
measures are called coupling and cohesion.

Cohesion
Cohesion is a measure that defines the degree of intra-dependability within elements
of a module. The greater the cohesion, the better is the program design.

There are seven types of cohesion, namely –

 Co-incidental cohesion - It is unplanned and random cohesion, which might be the result
of breaking the program into smaller modules for the sake of modularization. Because it is
unplanned, it may serve confusion to the programmers and is generally not-accepted.

 Logical cohesion - When logically categorized elements are put together into a module, it
is called logical cohesion.

 Temporal Cohesion - When elements of module are organized such that they are
processed at a similar point in time, it is called temporal cohesion.

 Procedural cohesion - When elements of module are grouped together, which are
executed sequentially in order to perform a task, it is called procedural cohesion.

 Communicational cohesion - When elements of module are grouped together, which are
executed sequentially and work on same data (information), it is called communicational
cohesion.

 Sequential cohesion - When elements of module are grouped because the output of one
element serves as input to another and so on, it is called sequential cohesion.

 Functional cohesion - It is considered to be the highest degree of cohesion, and it is


highly expected. Elements of module in functional cohesion are grouped because they all
contribute to a single well-defined function. It can also be reused.

Coupling
Coupling is a measure that defines the level of inter-dependability among modules of
a program. It tells at what level the modules interfere and interact with each other.
The lower the coupling, the better the program.

There are five levels of coupling, namely -

 Content coupling - When a module can directly access or modify or refer to the content of
another module, it is called content level coupling.
 Common coupling- When multiple modules have read and write access to some global
data, it is called common or global coupling.

 Control coupling- Two modules are called control-coupled if one of them decides the
function of the other module or changes its flow of execution.

 Stamp coupling- When multiple modules share common data structure and work on
different part of it, it is called stamp coupling.

 Data coupling- Data coupling is when two modules interact with each other by means of
passing data (as parameter). If a module passes data structure as parameter, then the
receiving module should use all its components.

Ideally, no coupling is considered to be the best.

Modularization
Modularization is a technique to divide a software system into multiple discrete and
independent modules, which are expected to be capable of carrying out task(s)
independently. These modules may work as basic constructs for the entire software.
Designers tend to design modules such that they can be executed and/or compiled
separately and independently.

Modular design unintentionally follows the rules of ‘divide and conquer’ problem-
solving strategy this is because there are many other benefits attached with the
modular design of a software.

Advantage of modularization:

 Smaller components are easier to maintain

 Program can be divided based on functional aspects

 Desired level of abstraction can be brought in the program

 Components with high cohesion can be re-used again

 Concurrent execution can be made possible

 Desired from security aspect

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