Java XOR operator (^) is not taken into account in cognitive complexity

SonarQube for IDE IntelliJ Platform
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10

I heard a remark about:

we should not treat != differently than ==

And I agree.

I think we could increase the complexity by +1 for ^ , != and == when at least one of the operand is also a binary expression, when one binary expression combine others:

if ((a < 2) ^ (b < 4))

if ((a < 2) != (b < 4))

if ((a < 2) == (b < 4))

But if no operand is a binary expression, even for boolean operands, I think we should not increase the complexity for == in this case, for example:

if (a == b)

And to be consistent, I think we should not increase the complexity for != and ^ in the same case.

My new proposal is, given a binary operator having boolean operands:

  • +1 for & and | using the same logic than && and || (consecutive series of the same operator only counts as +1)
  • +1 for ^, != and == when at least one operand is also a binary expression (binary expression combination)