Mastering Code Coverage with CppDepend

Improving Software Quality with Code Coverage in CppDepend

Which coverage technology is supported by CppDepend?

CppDepend can import coverage data from:
  • Bullseye� coverage files
  • Cobertura
  • Visual Studio Team System�
  • CTC++

How to get XML Coverage Files from Microsoft Visual Studio�?

Visual Studio� has 2 coverage files format.

  • A binary format where file extension is .coverage. This is the format you'll get from testing from Visual Studio. Alternatively you can also use the tool VSPerfMon.exe to get a .coverage file. For that you then need to instrument each projet to cover with the tool VSInstr.exe used with the /Coverage option.
  • A XML format. (with file extension .coveragexml since VS 2010, and .xml for previous versions)
  • CppDepend only consumes the XML format. You can manually export XML coverage files from binary coverage files from Visual Studio with this option:

    Visual Studio Code Coverage Export

See the code snippet below, it takes 3 lines of code to programmatically transform a binary coverage file into a xml coverage file.

  • For that you'll need to reference from your project the assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.Coverage.Analysis.dll:

    • A x86 version of this DLL can be found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio XX.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies
    • A x64 version of this DLL can be found on x64 server where TFS is installed under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server XX.0\Application Tier\TFSJobAgent\Plugins.
  • Both System.Data and System.Data.DataSetExtensions will have to be referenced as well.
  • And if you want your code to be independent from any VS or TFS install, you'll need to deploy as well Microsoft.VisualStudio.Coverage.Interop.dll that is used by Microsoft.VisualStudio.Coverage.Analysis.dll.
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Coverage.Analysis;
...
   var pathInBinary = @"C:\Dir\File.coverage";
   var pathOutXml = @"C:\Dir\File.coveragexml";

   var coverageInfo = CoverageInfo.CreateFromFile(pathInBinary);
   var data = coverageInfo.BuildDataSet();
   data.WriteXml(pathOutXml);

How to get XML Coverage Files from CTC++?

You can use the Ctc2cob tool which converts Testwell CTC++ reports into Cobertura-like XML reports.

How to provide a list of coverage files to parse during each analysis run?

In VisualCppDepend menu: Project Properties > Analysis > Code Coverage > Settings

code coverage settings

How to import coverage data into some analysis results

In VisualCppDepend menu: Coverage > Import Code Coverage Data
or
In VisualStudio menu: CppDepend > Coverage > Import Code Coverage Data

Import Code Coverage Data

CppDepend offers a wide range of features. It is often described as a Swiss Army Knife for C and C++ developers.

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