re: [RFC] gcov tool, comparing coverage across platforms

[Dan Kegel <dank@kegel.com>]

> 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.

Sounds like a fun project.

Rather than taking the path to each .gcov file on
the commandline, you might consider searching
from them, as lcov does.
Come to think of it, maybe you could steal
some ideas or even code from lcov. See
http://ltp.sourceforge.net/coverage/lcov.php
ltp is written in perl, for what it's worth.

I like using Bourne shell for projects it's a good
fit for, but you may find yourself needing
something like perl, since you'll be wrangling
lots of files and lots of text.
- Dan

-- 
Trying to get a job as a c++ developer?  See http://kegel.com/academy/getting-hired.html