How to get the number of lines of code from a github repository

Several methods exist to retrieve the number of code lines from a GitHub repository. You can use the GitHub website's graphical interface or command-line tools to count. Here are several common methods:

Through GitHub Website

GitHub provides basic repository statistics, including an overview of code lines.

1. Open the GitHub repository.
2. Click the 'Insights' tab on the repository page.
3. On the 'Insights' page, select the 'Code frequency' tab, where you can view statistics of past code commits, including the number of added and deleted lines.
4. Note that this method provides only an overall statistical view, not detailed line counts per individual file.

Using Git Command Line

If you have a local clone of the repository, you can use the git command-line tool to count code lines.

Open a terminal or command prompt, navigate to the local repository directory, and execute the following command:

sh
git ls-files | xargs wc -l

This command combination works as follows:

1. git ls-files: Lists all files in the repository.
2. xargs: Passes the output of git ls-files as arguments to the next command.
3. wc -l: Counts the lines in the input files.

This will print the line count for each file in the repository, along with the total line count.

Using GitHub API

For automated statistics or retrieving line counts in a program, you can access GitHub's API.

1. Call relevant endpoints of the GitHub REST API, such as the API for retrieving repository contents.
2. Analyze the returned JSON data to calculate line counts.

Note that the GitHub API may not directly provide line counts per file or for the entire repository, so additional logic may be required to process the returned data.

Using Third-Party Tools

There are also third-party services and tools, such as cloc (Count Lines of Code), which can be used to count code lines. These tools typically allow you to specify detailed criteria for file types and how to handle comments and blank lines.

For example, to install the cloc tool, use the following commands:

sh
# For Ubuntu/Debian systems
sudo apt-get install cloc

# For macOS
brew install cloc

Then, in the local repository directory, run:

sh
cloc .

This will count the number of lines in all files in the current directory (and subdirectories) and provide a detailed report.