This post explains how to flush gcov1 trace data dynamically from all linked shared libraries. Technique Typically tracing data is written when the application terminates. Tracing date from all shared libraries with activated gcov are written to the specified location. However, when tracing date is needed during runtime, a signal handler is required to call. Gcovr User Guide ¶ Gcovr provides a utility for managing the use of the GNU gcov utility and generating summarized code coverage results. This command is inspired by the Python coverage.py package, which provides a similar utility for Python. The gcovr command can produce different kinds of coverage reports. The GCOV development files are related to GNU GCC. GCOV file is a GNU GCOV Logfile. GCOV is a test coverage program. Use it in concert with GNU CC to analyze your programs to help create more efficient, faster running code. You can use gcov as a profiling tool to help discover where your optimization efforts will best affect your code.
Gcovr provides a utility for managing the use of the GNU gcov utilityand generating summarized code coverage results. This command isinspired by the Python coverage.py package, which provides a similarutility for Python.
The gcovr
command can produce different kinds of coverage reports:
- default: compact human-readable summaries
--xml
: machine readable XML reports in Cobertura format--html
: HTML summaries--html-details
: HTML report with annotated source files
Thus, gcovr can be viewedas a command-line alternative to the lcov utility, which runs gcovand generates an HTML-formatted report.The development of gcovr was motivated by the need fortext summaries and XML reports.
The Gcovr Home Page ishttp://gcovr.com.Automated test results are available throughTravis CI andAppveyor.Gcovr is available under theBSD license.
This documentation describes Gcovr 4.1.
This User Guide provides the following sections:
- Getting Started
- The gcovr Command
- Using Filters
Related documents:
- Contributing (includes instructions for bug reports)
The gcovr
command provides a summary of the lines that have beenexecuted in a program. Code coverage statistics help you discoveruntested parts of a program, which is particularly important whenassessing code quality. Well-tested code is a characteristic ofhigh quality code, and software developers often assess code coveragestatistics when deciding if software is ready for a release.
The gcovr
command can be used to analyze programs compiled withGCC. The following sections illustrate the application of gcovr
to test coverage of the following program:
This code executes several subroutines in this program,but some lines in the program are not executed.
We compile example1.cpp
with the GCC compiler as follows:
Note that we compile this program without optimization, becauseoptimization may combine lines of code and otherwise change theflow of execution in the program. Additionally, we compile withthe -fprofile-arcs-ftest-coverage-fPIC
compiler options, whichadd logic to generate output files that can be processed by thegcov
command.
The compiler generates the program
executable. When we execute this command:
the files example1.gcno
and example1.gcda
are generated. Thesefiles are processed with by gcov
to generate code coveragestatistics. The gcovr
command calls gcov
and summarizes thesecode coverage statistics in various formats. For example:
generates a text summary of the lines executed:
Each line of this output includes a summary for a given source file,including the number of lines instrumented, the number of linesexecuted, the percentage of lines executed, and a summary of theline numbers that were not executed. To improve clarity, gcovruses an aggressive approach to grouping uncovered lines and willcombine uncovered lines separated by “non-code” lines (blank,freestanding braces, and single-line comments) into a single region.As a result, the number of lines listed in the “Missing” list maybe greater than the difference of the “Lines” and “Exec” columns.
The -r
option specifies the root directory for the files that arebeing analyzed. This allows gcovr
to generate a simpler report(without absolute path names), and it allows system header filesto be excluded from the analysis.
Note that gcov
accumulates statistics by line. Consequently, itworks best with a programming style that places only one statementon each line.
The gcovr
command can also summarize branch coverage using the --branches
option:
This generates a tabular output that summarizes the number of branches, the number ofbranches taken and the branches that were not completely covered:
The default output format for gcovr
is to generate a tabularsummary in plain text. The gcovr
command can also generate anXML output using the --xml
and --xml-pretty
options:
This generates an XML summary of the lines executed:
This XML format is in theCobertura XMLformat suitable for import and display within theJenkins and Hudsoncontinuous integration servers using theCobertura Plugin.
The --xml
option generates a denser XML output, and the --xml-pretty
option generates an indented XML output that is easier to read.Note that the XML output contains more information than the tabularsummary. The tabular summary shows the percentage of covered lines,while the XML output includes branch statistics and the number oftimes that each line was covered. Consequently, XML output can beused to support performance optimization in the same manner thatgcov
does.
The gcovr
command can also generate a simpleHTML output using the --html
option:
This generates a HTML summary of the lines executed. In thisexample, the file example1.html
is generated, which has thefollowing output:
The default behavior of the --html
option is to generate HTML fora single webpage that summarizes the coverage for all files. TheHTML is printed to standard output, but the -o
(--output
) optionis used to specify a file that stores the HTML output.
The --html-details
option is used to create a separate web pagefor each file. Each of these web pages includes the contents offile with annotations that summarize code coverage. Consider the followingcommand:
This generates the following HTML page for the file example1.cpp
:
Note that the --html-details
option can only be used with the-o
(--output
) option. For example, if the --output
optionspecifies the output file coverage.html
, then the web pagesgenerated for each file will have names of the formcoverage.<filename>.html
.
The gcovr
command recursively searches a directory tree to findgcov
coverage files, and generates a text summary of the codecoverage. The --help
option generates the following summary ofthe gcovr
command line options:
A utility to run gcov and summarize the coverage in simple reports.
See <http://gcovr.com/> for the full manual.
Options¶
search_paths
¶Search these directories for coverage files. Defaults to –root and –object-directory.
-h
,
--help
¶Show this help message, then exit.
--version
¶Print the version number, then exit.
-v
,
--verbose
¶Print progress messages. Please include this output in bug reports.
-r
<root>
,
--root
<root>
¶The root directory of your source files. Defaults to ‘.’, the current directory. File names are reported relative to this root. The –root is the default –filter.
--fail-under-line
<min>
¶Exit with a status of 2 if the total line coverage is less than MIN. Can be ORed with exit status of ‘–fail-under-branch’ option.
--fail-under-branch
<min>
¶Exit with a status of 4 if the total branch coverage is less than MIN. Can be ORed with exit status of ‘–fail-under-line’ option.
--source-encoding
<source_encoding>
¶Select the source file encoding. Defaults to the system default encoding (UTF-8).
--html-medium-threshold
<medium>
¶If the coverage is below MEDIUM, the value is marked as low coverage in the HTML report. MEDIUM has to be lower than or equal to value of –html-high-threshold. If MEDIUM is equal to value of –html-high-threshold the report has only high and low coverage. Default is 75.0.
--html-high-threshold
<high>
¶If the coverage is below HIGH, the value is marked as medium coverage in the HTML report. HIGH has to be greater than or equal to value of –html-medium-threshold. If HIGH is equal to value of –html-medium-threshold the report has only high and low coverage. Default is 90.0.
Output Options¶
Gcovr prints a text report by default, but can switch to XML or HTML.
-o
<output>
,
--output
<output>
¶Print output to this filename. Defaults to stdout. Required for –html-details.
-b
,
--branches
¶Report the branch coverage instead of the line coverage. For text report only.
-u
,
--sort-uncovered
¶Sort entries by increasing number of uncovered lines. For text and HTML report.
-p
,
--sort-percentage
¶Sort entries by increasing percentage of uncovered lines. For text and HTML report.
-x
,
--xml
¶Generate a Cobertura XML report.
--xml-pretty
¶Pretty-print the XML report. Implies –xml. Default: False.
--html
¶Generate a HTML report.
--html-details
¶Add annotated source code reports to the HTML report. Requires –output as a basename for the reports. Implies –html.
--html-title
<title>
¶Use TITLE as title for the HTML report. Default is Head.
--html-absolute-paths
¶Use absolute paths to link the –html-details reports. Defaults to relative links.
--html-encoding
<html_encoding>
¶Override the declared HTML report encoding. Defaults to UTF-8. See also –source-encoding.
-s
,
--print-summary
¶Print a small report to stdout with line & branch percentage coverage. This is in addition to other reports. Default: False.
Filter Options¶
Filters decide which files are included in the report. Any filter must match, and no exclude filter must match. A filter is a regular expression that matches a path. Filter paths use forward slashes, even on Windows.
-f
<filter>
,
--filter
<filter>
¶Keep only source files that match this filter. Can be specified multiple times. If no filters are provided, defaults to –root.
-e
<exclude>
,
--exclude
<exclude>
¶Exclude source files that match this filter. Can be specified multiple times.
--gcov-filter
<gcov_filter>
¶Keep only gcov data files that match this filter. Can be specified multiple times.
--gcov-exclude
<gcov_exclude>
¶Exclude gcov data files that match this filter. Can be specified multiple times.
--exclude-directories
<exclude_dirs>
¶Exclude directories that match this regex while searching raw coverage files. Can be specified multiple times.
GCOV Options¶
The ‘gcov’ tool turns raw coverage files (.gcda and .gcno) into .gcov files that are then processed by gcovr. The gcno files are generated by the compiler. The gcda files are generated when the instrumented program is executed.
--gcov-executable
<gcov_cmd>
¶Use a particular gcov executable. Must match the compiler you are using, e.g. ‘llvm-cov gcov’ for Clang. Can include additional arguments. Defaults to the GCOV environment variable, or ‘gcov’: ‘gcov’.
--exclude-unreachable-branches
¶Exclude branch coverage with LCOV/GCOV exclude markers. Additionally, exclude branch coverage from lines without useful source code (often, compiler-generated “dead” code). Default: False.
-g
,
--use-gcov-files
¶Use existing gcov files for analysis. Default: False.
--gcov-ignore-parse-errors
¶Skip lines with parse errors in GCOV files instead of exiting with an error. A report will be shown on stderr. Default: False.
--object-directory
<objdir>
¶Override normal working directory detection. Gcovr needs to identify the path between gcda files and the directory where the compiler was originally run. Normally, gcovr can guess correctly. This option specifies either the path from gcc to the gcda file (i.e. gcc’s ‘-o’ option), or the path from the gcda file to gcc’s working directory.
-k
,
--keep
¶Keep gcov files after processing. This applies both to files that were generated by gcovr, or were supplied via the –use-gcov-files option. Default: False.
-d
,
--delete
¶Delete gcda files after processing. Default: False.
-j
<gcov_parallel>
¶Set the number of threads to use in parallel.
The above Getting Started guideillustrates the use of some command line options.Using Filters is discussed below.
Gcovr tries to only report coverage for files within your project,not for your libraries. This is influenced by the following options:
-r
,--root
-f
,--filter
-e
,--exclude
- (the current working directory where gcovr is invoked)
These options take filters.A filter is a regular expression that matches a file path.Because filters are regexes,you will have to escape “special” characters with a backslash .
Always use forward slashes /
as path separators, even on Windows:
- wrong:
--filterC:projectsrc
- correct:
--filterC:/project/src/
If the filter looks like an absolute path,it is matched against an absolute path.Otherwise, the filter is matched against a relative path,where that path is relative to the current directory.Examples of relative filters:
--filtersubdir/
matches only that subdirectory--filter'../src/'
matches a sibling directory../src
.But because a dot.
matches any character in a regex,we have to escape it.You have to use additional shell escaping.This example uses single quotes for Bash or POSIX shell.--filter'(.+/)?foo.c$'
matches only files calledfoo.c
.The regex must match from the start of the relative path,so we ignore any leading directory parts with(.+/)?
.The$
at the end ensures that the path ends here.
If no --filter
is provided,the --root
is turned into a default filter.Therefore, files outside of the --root
directory are excluded.
To be included in a report, the source file must match any --filter
,and must not match any --exclude
filter.
The --gcov-filter
and --gcov-exclude
filters apply to the .gcov
files created by gcov
.This is useful mostly when running gcov yourself,and then invoking gcovr with -g
/--use-gcov-files
.But these filters also apply when gcov is launched by gcovr.
The --exclude-directories
filter is usedwhile searching for raw coverage data(or for existing .gcov
files when --use-gcov-files
is active).This filter is matched against directory paths, not file paths.If a directory matches,all its contents (files and subdirectories) will be excluded from the search.For example, consider this build directory:
If we run gcovr--exclude-directories'build/a$'
,this will exclude anything in the build/a
directorybut will use the coverage data for better_code.o
and main.o
.
This can speed up gcovr when you have a complicated build directory structure.Consider also using the search_paths
or --object-directory
argumentsto specify where gcovr starts searching.If you are unsure which directories are being searched,run gcovr in --verbose
mode.
For each found coverage data file gcovr will invoke the gcov
tool.This is typically the slowest part,and other filters can only be applied after this step.In some cases, parallel execution with the -j
optionmight be helpful to speed up processing.
Gcovr matches filters against real pathsthat have all their symlinks resolved.E.g. consider this project layout:
Here, the relevant-library
has the real path /home/you/external-library
.
To write a filter that includes both src/
and relevant-library/src/
,we cannot use --filterrelevant-library/src/
because that contains a symlink.Instead, we have to use an absolute path to the real name:
or a relative path to the real path:
Note
This section discusses symlinks on Unix systems.The behavior under Windows is unclear.If you have more insight,please update this section by submitting a pull request(see our contributing guide).
Gcovr is maintained by:
The following developers contributed to gcovr (ordered alphabetically):
Gcov For Mac Os
Gcov For C++
The development of Gcovr has been partially supportedby Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories isa multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation,a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for theU.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administrationunder contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.