Ubuntu Manpage: geninfo - Generate tracefiles from .da files

NAME

       geninfo - Generate tracefiles from .da files

SYNOPSIS

       geninfo [-h|--help] [-v|--version] [-q|--quiet]
               [-i|--initial] [-t|--test-name test-name]
               [-o|--output-filename filename] [-f|--follow]
               [-b|--base-directory directory]
               [--checksum] [--no-checksum]
               [--compat-libtool] [--no-compat-libtool]
               [--gcov-tool tool] [--ignore-errors errors]
               [--no-recursion] directory [--external] [--no-external]
               [--config-file config-file] [--no-markers]
               [--derive-func-data] [--compat mode=on|off|auto]
               [--rc keyword=value]

DESCRIPTION

       geninfo  converts  all  GCOV coverage data files found in directory into tracefiles, which
       the genhtml tool can convert to HTML output.

       Unless the --output-filename option is specified, geninfo writes its output  to  one  file
       per .da file, the name of which is generated by simply appending ".info" to the respective
       .da file name.

       Note that the current user needs write access to both directory as well as to the original
       source  code  location.  This is necessary because some temporary files have to be created
       there during the conversion process.

       Note also that geninfo is called from within lcov, so that there is  usually  no  need  to
       call it directly.

       Exclusion markers

       To  exclude  specific lines of code from a tracefile, you can add exclusion markers to the
       source code. Additionally you can exclude specific branches from branch  coverage  without
       excluding  the  involved  lines  from  line  and  function coverage. Exclusion markers are
       keywords which can for example be added in the form of a comment.  See  lcovrc(5)  how  to
       override some of them.

       The following markers are recognized by geninfo:

       LCOV_EXCL_LINE
              Lines containing this marker will be excluded.
       LCOV_EXCL_START
              Marks  the  beginning  of  an  excluded  section.  The current line is part of this
              section.
       LCOV_EXCL_STOP
              Marks the end of an excluded section. The current line not part of this section.
       LCOV_EXCL_BR_LINE
              Lines containing this marker will be excluded from branch coverage.
       LCOV_EXCL_BR_START
              Marks the beginning of a section  which  is  excluded  from  branch  coverage.  The
              current line is part of this section.
       LCOV_EXCL_BR_STOP
              Marks the end of a section which is excluded from branch coverage. The current line
              not part of this section.

OPTIONS

-b directory
--base-directory directory
Use directory as base directory for relative paths.

Use this option to specify the base directory of a build-environment when geninfo
produces error messages like:

ERROR: could not read source file
/home/user/project/subdir1/subdir2/subdir1/subdir2/file.c

In this example, use /home/user/project as base directory.

This option is required when using geninfo on projects built with libtool or
similar build environments that work with a base directory, i.e. environments,
where the current working directory when invoking the compiler is not the same
directory in which the source code file is located.

Note that this option will not work in environments where multiple base directories
are used. In that case use configuration file setting geninfo_auto_base=1 (see
lcovrc(5)).

--checksum
--no-checksum
Specify whether to generate checksum data when writing tracefiles.

Use --checksum to enable checksum generation or --no-checksum to disable it.
Checksum generation is disabled by default.

When checksum generation is enabled, a checksum will be generated for each source
code line and stored along with the coverage data. This checksum will be used to
prevent attempts to combine coverage data from different source code versions.

If you don't work with different source code versions, disable this option to speed
up coverage data processing and to reduce the size of tracefiles.

--compat mode=value[,mode=value,...]
Set compatibility mode.

Use --compat to specify that geninfo should enable one or more compatibility modes
when capturing coverage data. You can provide a comma-separated list of mode=value
pairs to specify the values for multiple modes.

Valid values are:

on
Enable compatibility mode.
off
Disable compatibility mode.
auto
Apply auto-detection to determine if compatibility mode is required. Note
that auto-detection is not available for all compatibility modes.

If no value is specified, 'on' is assumed as default value.

Valid modes are:

libtool
Enable this mode if you are capturing coverage data for a project that was
built using the libtool mechanism. See also --compat-libtool.

The default value for this setting is 'on'.

hammer
Enable this mode if you are capturing coverage data for a project that was
built using a version of GCC 3.3 that contains a modification (hammer patch)
of later GCC versions. You can identify a modified GCC 3.3 by checking the
build directory of your project for files ending in the extension '.bbg'.
Unmodified versions of GCC 3.3 name these files '.bb'.

The default value for this setting is 'auto'.

split_crc
Enable this mode if you are capturing coverage data for a project that was
built using a version of GCC 4.6 that contains a modification (split
function checksums) of later GCC versions. Typical error messages when
running geninfo on coverage data produced by such GCC versions are ´out of
memory' and 'reached unexpected end of file'.

The default value for this setting is 'auto'

--compat-libtool
--no-compat-libtool
Specify whether to enable libtool compatibility mode.

Use --compat-libtool to enable libtool compatibility mode or --no-compat-libtool to
disable it. The libtool compatibility mode is enabled by default.

When libtool compatibility mode is enabled, geninfo will assume that the source
code relating to a .da file located in a directory named ".libs" can be found in
its parent directory.

If you have directories named ".libs" in your build environment but don't use
libtool, disable this option to prevent problems when capturing coverage data.

--config-file config-file
Specify a configuration file to use.

When this option is specified, neither the system-wide configuration file
/etc/lcovrc, nor the per-user configuration file ~/.lcovrc is read.

This option may be useful when there is a need to run several instances of geninfo
with different configuration file options in parallel.

--derive-func-data
Calculate function coverage data from line coverage data.

Use this option to collect function coverage data, even if the version of the gcov
tool installed on the test system does not provide this data. lcov will instead
derive function coverage data from line coverage data and information about which
lines belong to a function.

--external
--no-external
Specify whether to capture coverage data for external source files.

External source files are files which are not located in one of the directories
specified by --directory or --base-directory. Use --external to include external
source files while capturing coverage data or --no-external to ignore this data.

Data for external source files is included by default.

-f
--follow
Follow links when searching .da files.

--gcov-tool tool
Specify the location of the gcov tool.

-h
--help
Print a short help text, then exit.

--ignore-errors errors
Specify a list of errors after which to continue processing.

Use this option to specify a list of one or more classes of errors after which
geninfo should continue processing instead of aborting.

errors can be a comma-separated list of the following keywords:

gcov: the gcov tool returned with a non-zero return code.

source: the source code file for a data set could not be found.

-i
--initial
Capture initial zero coverage data.

Run geninfo with this option on the directories containing .bb, .bbg or .gcno files
before running any test case. The result is a "baseline" coverage data file that
contains zero coverage for every instrumented line and function. Combine this data
file (using lcov -a) with coverage data files captured after a test run to ensure
that the percentage of total lines covered is correct even when not all object code
files were loaded during the test.

Note: currently, the --initial option does not generate branch coverage
information.

--no-markers
Use this option if you want to get coverage data without regard to exclusion
markers in the source code file.

--no-recursion
Use this option if you want to get coverage data for the specified directory only
without processing subdirectories.

-o output-filename
--output-filename output-filename
Write all data to output-filename.

If you want to have all data written to a single file (for easier handling), use
this option to specify the respective filename. By default, one tracefile will be
created for each processed .da file.

-q
--quiet
Do not print progress messages.

Suppresses all informational progress output. When this switch is enabled, only
error or warning messages are printed.

--rc keyword=value
Override a configuration directive.

Use this option to specify a keyword=value statement which overrides the
corresponding configuration statement in the lcovrc configuration file. You can
specify this option more than once to override multiple configuration statements.
See lcovrc(5) for a list of available keywords and their meaning.

-t testname
--test-name testname
Use test case name testname for resulting data. Valid test case names can consist
of letters, decimal digits and the underscore character ('_').

This proves useful when data from several test cases is merged (i.e. by simply
concatenating the respective tracefiles) in which case a test name can be used to
differentiate between data from each test case.

-v
--version
Print version number, then exit.

FILES

       /etc/lcovrc
              The system-wide configuration file.

       ~/.lcovrc
              The per-user configuration file.

       Following is a quick description of the tracefile format as used by genhtml,  geninfo  and
       lcov.

       A  tracefile is made up of several human-readable lines of text, divided into sections. If
       available, a tracefile begins with the testname which is stored in the following format:

         TN:<test name>

       For each source file referenced in the .da file, there is a  section  containing  filename
       and coverage data:

         SF:<absolute path to the source file>

       Following is a list of line numbers for each function name found in the source file:

         FN:<line number of function start>,<function name>

       Next, there is a list of execution counts for each instrumented function:

         FNDA:<execution count>,<function name>

       This list is followed by two lines containing the number of functions found and hit:

         FNF:<number of functions found>
         FNH:<number of function hit>

       Branch coverage information is stored which one line per branch:

         BRDA:<line number>,<block number>,<branch number>,<taken>

       Block number and branch number are gcc internal IDs for the branch. Taken is either '-' if
       the basic block containing the branch was never executed or a number indicating how  often
       that branch was taken.

       Branch coverage summaries are stored in two lines:

         BRF:<number of branches found>
         BRH:<number of branches hit>

       Then  there  is  a  list of execution counts for each instrumented line (i.e. a line which
       resulted in executable code):

         DA:<line number>,<execution count>[,<checksum>]

       Note that there may be an optional  checksum  present  for  each  instrumented  line.  The
       current geninfo implementation uses an MD5 hash as checksumming algorithm.

       At  the  end of a section, there is a summary about how many lines were found and how many
       were actually instrumented:

         LH:<number of lines with a non-zero execution count>
         LF:<number of instrumented lines>

       Each sections ends with:

         end_of_record

       In addition to the main source code file there are sections for all #included files  which
       also contain executable code.

       Note  that the absolute path of a source file is generated by interpreting the contents of
       the respective .bb file (see gcov (1) for more information on this  file  type).  Relative
       filenames are prefixed with the directory in which the .bb file is found.

       Note  also  that  symbolic  links to the .bb file will be resolved so that the actual file
       path is used instead of the path to a link. This approach is necessary for  the  mechanism
       to work with the /proc/gcov files.

AUTHOR