A Software Package for Generating Code Coverage Reports With Gcov

Abstract

Code coverage is an essential tool often used in software testing. Therefore, a tool that generates well-organized and easy-to-read customized reports containing code coverage information is highly beneficial. In this report, we present the Gcov Report Generator (GRG) software, which includes a library developed for generating code coverage reports in PDF format with Gcov and a supporting application program named coverage that uses the library through the command line. This GRG software can work with the GCC C++ compiler version 10 onwards. The documentation of the application programming interface for the GRG library, the command-line interface for using coverage, and the usage example of generated PDF reports are presented. The GRG software can be used as a front-end tool to the Gcov program to generate code coverage reports in PDF format with function coverage, statement coverage, and branch coverage information. In addition, program options can be utilized to filter the file and function patterns, select coverage criteria types, specify coverage thresholds, and aggregate function information for templates, constructors, and destructors.