The LTP GCOV extension (lcov)

About LCOV

LCOV is an extension of GCOV, a GNU tool which provides information about what parts of a program are actually executed (i.e. "covered") while running a particular test case. The extension consists of a set of PERL scripts which build on the textual GCOV output to implement the following enhanced functionality:

• HTML based output: coverage rates are additionally indicated using bar graphs and specific colors.
• Support for large projects: overview pages allow quick browsing of coverage data by providing three levels of detail: directory view, file view and source code view.

LCOV was initially designed to support Linux kernel coverage measurements (requires the gcov-kernel package, see "Downloads and links" section), but works as well for coverage measurements on standard user space applications.

Authors

LCOV was jointly created by a group of developers from the IBM Linux Technology Center in Austin, Texas and the IBM Development Lab in Boeblingen, Germany.

Contributors in alphabetical order:

• Manoj Iyer
• James Kenefick
• Peter Oberparleiter
• Linda J Scott

Documentation

• Documentation on using lcov
• Documentation on using GCOV

Downloads and links

• GCOV kernel patches and the LCOV analysis tools can be downloaded here
• Coverage output as generated by LCOV for the LTP test suite.
• LCOV files in the CVS directory (containing the most current version)
• Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) web site, a source for obtaining the GD.pm graphics library which is needed for the --frames option of genhtml.pl.

Comments And Questions

• Comments or questions may be emailed to: ltp-coverage@lists.sourceforge.net