From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 20834 invoked by alias); 23 Jun 2005 18:41:28 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 20812 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Jun 2005 18:41:23 -0000 Received: from rigel.cs.pdx.edu (HELO rigel.cs.pdx.edu) (131.252.208.59) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.30-dev) with ESMTP; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:41:23 +0000 Received: from [192.168.0.249] (216-99-213-174.dsl.aracnet.com [216.99.213.174]) by rigel.cs.pdx.edu (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j5NIf54J012239; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:41:09 -0700 (PDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v619.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: <1a2da76c1e1cee6a2486ac9ef61bd3c7@cs.pdx.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Janis Johnson From: ransom@cs.pdx.edu Subject: [RFC] gcov tool, comparing coverage across platforms Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:41:00 -0000 To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org X-SW-Source: 2005-06/txt/msg01005.txt.bz2 We are a group of undergrads at Portland State University who accepted as our senior capstone software engineering project a proposed tool for use with gcov for summarizing gcov outputs for a given piece of source code tested on multiple architecture/OS platforms. A summary of the initial proposal is here: http://www.clutchplate.org/gcov/gcov_proposal.txt A rough overview of our proposed design is as follows: We would build a tool which would accept as input: on the command line, paths to each .gcov file to be included in the summary, each of these to be followed by a string which would be the platform identifier for that .gcov file. The .gcov files would be combined so that the format would parallel the existing output, with the summarized report listing each line of the source once, followed immediately by a line for each platform id and the coverage data for that platform. Our closest interpretation of this is to provide a tool in the form of a shell script which would provide a listing very much like the current gcov output, but which would for each line or section of source provide coverage information for each platform with a note associating each output with its specific platform identifier. Current questions include whether this tool needs to be used on platforms for which a bourne shell script is inappropriate and whether this tool needs to be coded in C instead. Also, whether the -a, -b, -c and -f output types from gcov all need to be accounted for or whether only some of these outputs are of types for which cross-platform comparison makes sense. We have little doubt that regular users of gcov will see other concerns as obvious which we haven't foreseen at all. We welcome exactly these observations. Most importantly, since there is no one clear party who has commissioned this tool, we need input as to whether we are on the right track to build a useful tool. Our time is limited and our deadline for a finished item is the end of July. We would be most grateful for any comment or guidance, any instance of a point a user might need to make use of this tool. Thanks, Jesse Burkett gcov capstone team at PSU gcov-capstone@cs.pdx.edu