man/geninfo.1

.TH geninfo 1 "LCOV 1.7" 2008\-11\-17 "User Manuals"
.SH NAME
geninfo \- Generate tracefiles from .da files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B geninfo
.RB [ \-h | \-\-help ]
.RB [ \-v | \-\-version ]
.RB [ \-q | \-\-quiet ]
.br
.RS 8
.RB [ \-i | \-\-initial ]
.RB [ \-t | \-\-test\-name
.IR test\-name ]
.br
.RB [ \-o | \-\-output\-filename
.IR filename ]
.RB [ \-f | \-\-follow ]
.br
.RB [ \-b | \-\-base\-directory
.IR directory ]
.br
.RB [ \-\-checksum ]
.RB [ \-\-no\-checksum ]
.br
.RB [ \-\-compat\-libtool ]
.RB [ \-\-no\-compat\-libtool ]
.br
.RB [ \-\-gcov\-tool
.IR tool  ]
.RB [ \-\-ignore\-errors
.IR errors  ]
.br
.RB [ \-\-no\-recursion ]
.I directory
.RE
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B geninfo 
converts all GCOV coverage data files found in 
.I directory
into tracefiles, which the
.B genhtml
tool can convert to HTML output.

Unless the \-\-output\-filename option is specified,
.B 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
.I 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
.B geninfo
is called from within
.BR lcov ,
so that there is usually no need to call it directly.
.SH OPTIONS

.B \-b
.I directory
.br
.B \-\-base\-directory
.I directory
.br
.RS
.RI "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:

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

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 repeat the geninfo call for each base
directory while using the \-\-ignore\-errors option to prevent geninfo from
exiting when the first source code file could not be found. This way you can
get partial coverage information for each base directory which can then be
combined using the \-a option.
.RE

.B \-\-checksum
.br
.B \-\-no\-checksum
.br
.RS
Specify whether to generate checksum data when writing tracefiles.

Use \-\-checksum to enable checksum generation or \-\-no\-checksum to
disable it. Checksum generation is
.B 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.
.RE

.B \-\-compat\-libtool
.br
.B \-\-no\-compat\-libtool
.br
.RS
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
.B 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.
.RE

.B \-f
.br
.B \-\-follow
.RS
Follow links when searching .da files.
.RE

.B \-\-gcov\-tool
.I tool
.br
.RS
Specify the location of the gcov tool.
.RE

.B \-h
.br
.B \-\-help
.RS
Print a short help text, then exit.
.RE

.B \-\-ignore\-errors
.I errors
.br
.RS
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.

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

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

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

.B \-i
.br
.B \-\-initial
.RS
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. 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 source code files were loaded during the test.
.RE

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

.BI "\-o " output\-filename
.br
.BI "\-\-output\-filename " output\-filename
.RS
Write all data to
.IR 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.
.RE

.B \-q
.br
.B \-\-quiet
.RS
Do not print progress messages.

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

.BI "\-t " testname
.br
.BI "\-\-test\-name " testname
.RS
Use test case name 
.I 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.
.RE

.B \-v
.br
.B \-\-version
.RS
Print version number, then exit.
.RE


.SH FILES

.I /etc/lcovrc
.RS
The system\-wide configuration file.
.RE

.I ~/.lcovrc
.RS
The per\-user configuration file.
.RE

Following is a quick description of the tracefile format as used by
.BR 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
.I 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>

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
.B 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
.BR "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.

.SH AUTHOR
Peter Oberparleiter <Peter.Oberparleiter@de.ibm.com>

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR lcov (1),
.BR genhtml (1),
.BR genpng (1),
.BR gendesc (1),
.BR gcov (1)