Known Limitations

This document lists known limitations of hotspots MVP.

Control Flow

Break/Continue Statements

Status: Partially supported

• Break and continue statements are counted toward Non-Structured Exits (NS)
• However, they currently route to CFG exit rather than the correct loop exit/header
• Full loop context tracking is needed for proper CFG construction

Impact: NS metric is accurate, but CFG structure may be simplified for break/continue

Labeled Break/Continue

Status: Supported but simplified

• Labeled break/continue are supported and counted
• Label resolution is static and deterministic
• However, routing to the correct labeled target is not fully implemented

Impact: Functions with labeled breaks/continues work but CFG may be simplified

TypeScript Features

JSX/TSX

Status: Not supported

• JSX/TSX syntax causes a parse error
• Analysis aborts when JSX is encountered

Workaround: Analyze only plain TypeScript files (.ts, not .tsx)

Generator Functions

Status: Not supported

• Generator functions (function*) cause analysis errors
• Functions with generators are skipped

Impact: Projects using generators will have incomplete analysis

Experimental Decorators

Status: Not supported

• Experimental decorator syntax is disabled
• Standard decorators (ES2022) may work but are untested

Impact: Projects using experimental decorators may have parsing issues

Analysis Scope

Global Functions

Status: Analyzed but without context

• Global functions are analyzed independently
• No cross-function dependency analysis
• Module-level complexity is not measured

Impact: Functions are analyzed in isolation, which is intentional

Async Functions

Status: Supported but simplified

• Async/await syntax is parsed correctly
• However, async control flow is treated as sequential
• Promise chains are not analyzed as control flow

Impact: Async functions are analyzed but complexity may be underestimated

Type Information

Status: Not used

• Type annotations are parsed but not used in analysis
• Only structural control flow is analyzed
• Type-driven complexity (overloads, generics) is not measured

Impact: Type complexity does not affect LRS (this is intentional - structural only)

Output

Floating Point Precision

Status: Deterministic but platform-dependent

• Internal calculations use full f64 precision
• JSON output preserves full precision
• Text output rounds to 2 decimal places
• Precision may vary slightly across platforms due to floating point representation

Impact: Minimal - results are deterministic within platform

File Path Normalization

Status: Simplified

• Paths are normalized to absolute paths
• Symlinks are not resolved
• Case sensitivity follows filesystem rules

Impact: Results may vary slightly on case-insensitive filesystems

Performance

Large Codebases

Status: Not optimized

• Analysis is single-threaded
• Memory usage is not optimized
• No caching of parsed ASTs

Impact: Very large codebases may be slow to analyze

Incremental Analysis

Status: Not supported

• Full analysis runs every time
• No incremental updates
• No change detection

Impact: Analyzing large codebases repeatedly may be slow

Future Improvements

These limitations are planned for future versions:

1. Full loop context tracking for break/continue
2. JSX/TSX support for React/TypeScript projects
3. Generator function analysis
4. Performance optimizations for large codebases
5. Incremental analysis support