KLOC (thousands of lines of code)

KLOC (thousands of lines of code) is a traditional measure of how large a computer program is or how long or how many people it will take to write it. The code measured is usually source code . Since a higher-level source language (such as C++ ) compiles into more lines of machine code than a lower-level language (such as assembler language), a KLOC of C++ statements would generate a larger program (in number of byte s) than a KLOC of assembler language statements.

KLOC has been used as a rough measure of programmer productivity, as in "How many lines of code can you write a day?" However, this measure does not consider the efficiency of the code. Many other factors obviously affect productivity.

Defects per KLOC is a common measure used as a target or for evaluating code quality.