Instrumentation of Included Files

Header files and other included files can be instrumented with Testwell CTC++ like any other source file. Based on the include mechanism of C and C++, the handling and reporting consequences differ slightly.

For the purpose of coverage measurement, "header" and "included file" can be seen as synonyms. Both terms are used here, depending on the context. Relevant for Testwell CTC++ is that these files are not directly compiled, but included via #include in another source file. Not relevant is if these files are actually header files, or if they are, for example, normal source files included for unit testing.

To instrument included files, the setting for the configuration parameters EXCLUDE, NO_EXCLUDE and NO_INCLUDE must be checked and adapted if necessary: By default, all included files are excluded from instrumentation with the setting

EXCLUDE = %INCLUDES%

to avoid instrumentation of system headers.

During instrumentation and testing, each #include of file X in another source file is processed separately: File X is represented in the symbol file(s) in a copy for each inclusion. These copies might differ due to preprocessor directives. Each copy of X has its own, independent coverage counters.

When reports are generated from symbol and data files with ctcreport, the different copies are consolidated to one or more variants.

To get coverage for an included file, all source files including X must be instrumented. They can be excluded from reports later.

Note: For files included inside functions, the included code is completely treated as a part of the function.