Coverage Consolidation

Coverage consolidation designates the general facility allowing the computation of the overall coverage achieved by a set of executions. When different executions get through common units of interest, consolidation computes the combined coverage of all the executions on these units.

A typical case where consolidation is useful is when some part of an application depends on external inputs and several executions are required to exercise different scenarios in the application program. The execution traces to consolidate are obtained from the same executable in this case. Another common situation is when execution of different executables is needed to achieve the required coverage for a software, either because distinct software modules are tested independently (e.g. the different units of a library), or because different aspects of the behavior of modules are tested separately (e.g. the different subprograms of a library unit or different scenarios of a given subprogram).

The production of consolidated coverage reports can proceed either directly from a set of source or binary traces produced by the executions, or from a set of pre-computed partial results latched in what we refer to as coverage checkpoints, which offer a lot of advanced capabilities. The following sections illustrate various combinations of the possibilities.

• Consolidation from trace files
  • Single unit tested by different programs
  • Disjoint units tested by different programs
  • Multiple executions of a single program
  • Special care needed with binary traces
• Consolidation from coverage checkpoints
  • Efficient production of multiple reports
  • Efficient storage of individual test results
  • Incremental coverage analysis
  • Handle incidental coverage effects
  • Compatibility considerations