How the coverage tool works

The IDE's code coverage tool works in conjunction with the compiler (gcc), the QNX C library (libc), and optionally the remote target agent (qconn). When code coverage is enabled for an application, the compiler instruments the code so that at run time, each branch execution to a basic block is counted. During the build, the IDE produces data files in order to recreate the program's flow graph and to provide line locations of each block.

CAUTION:

Since the IDE creates secondary data files at compilation time, you must be careful when building your programs in a multitargeted build environment, such as QNX Neutrino.

You must either:

ensure that the last compiled binary is the one you're collecting coverage data on,
or:
enable only one architecture and one variant (debug or release).

Note also that the compiler's optimizations could produce unexpected results, so you should perform coverage tests on an unoptimized, debug-enabled build.

When you build an application with the Build with Code Coverage build option enabled and then launch it using a C/C++ QNX Qconn (IP) launch configuration, the instrumented code linked into the process connects to qconn, allowing the coverage data to be read from the process's data space. However, if you launch a coverage-built process with coverage disabled in the launch configuration, this causes the process to write the coverage information to a data file (.gcda) at run time, rather than read it from the process's data space. Later, you can import the data into the IDE code coverage tool. For information about importing gcc coverage data from a project, see Importing gcc code coverage data from a project later in this chapter.

Note: If you want to instrument a static library with code coverage, you must also instrument your binary with code coverage, or link with the code coverage library using the following option in the linker command:

-lgcov

This option will link in the ${QNX_HOST}/usr/lib/gcc/target/version/libcov.a library.

Once a coverage session has begun, you can immediately view the data. The QNX Code Coverage perspective contains a Code Coverage Sessions view that lists previous as well as currently active sessions. You can explore each session and browse the corresponding source files that have received coverage data.

Note: Code Coverage might not work as expected because the code coverage data for C++ projects includes other functions that are also in the source file, such as static initializer and global constructor functions. In addition, the files included by include statements aren't included in the overall coverage total; only those functions that are in the original source are included for code coverage.