r281988 - [docs] Extend the code coverage docs some more

[Vedant Kumar via cfe-commits]

Author: vedantk
Date: Tue Sep 20 12:11:18 2016
New Revision: 281988

URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?rev=281988&view=rev
Log:
[docs] Extend the code coverage docs some more

Flesh out the section on interpreting coverage reports, mention the
coverage export feature, and add notes on how to build llvm with
coverage turned on.

Modified:
    cfe/trunk/docs/SourceBasedCodeCoverage.rst

Modified: cfe/trunk/docs/SourceBasedCodeCoverage.rst
URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project/cfe/trunk/docs/SourceBasedCodeCoverage.rst?rev=281988&r1=281987&r2=281988&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- cfe/trunk/docs/SourceBasedCodeCoverage.rst (original)
+++ cfe/trunk/docs/SourceBasedCodeCoverage.rst Tue Sep 20 12:11:18 2016
@@ -177,6 +177,13 @@ A few final notes:
 
       % llvm-profdata merge -sparse foo1.profraw foo2.profdata -o foo3.profdata
 
+Exporting coverage data
+=======================
+
+Coverage data can be exported into JSON using the ``llvm-cov export``
+sub-command. There is a comprehensive reference which defines the structure of
+the exported data at a high level in the llvm-cov source code.
+
 Interpreting reports
 ====================
 
@@ -187,15 +194,23 @@ There are four statistics tracked in a c
   instantiations are executed.
 
 * Instantiation coverage is the percentage of function instantiations which
-  have been executed at least once.
+  have been executed at least once. Template functions and static inline
+  functions from headers are two kinds of functions which may have multiple
+  instantiations.
 
 * Line coverage is the percentage of code lines which have been executed at
-  least once.
+  least once. Only executable lines within function bodies are considered to be
+  code lines, so e.g coverage for macro definitions in a header might not be
+  included.
 
 * Region coverage is the percentage of code regions which have been executed at
   least once. A code region may span multiple lines (e.g a large function with
   no control flow). However, it's also possible for a single line to contain
-  multiple code regions (e.g some short-circuited logic).
+  multiple code regions or even nested code regions (e.g "return x || y && z").
+
+Of these four statistics, function coverage is usually the least granular while
+region coverage is the most granular. The project-wide totals for each
+statistic are listed in the summary.
 
 Format compatibility guarantees
 ===============================
@@ -213,6 +228,11 @@ Format compatibility guarantees
   into instrumented binaries. Tools must retain **backwards** compatibility
   with these formats. These formats are not forwards-compatible.
 
+* The JSON coverage export format has a (major, minor, patch) version triple.
+  Only a major version increment indicates a backwards-incompatible change. A
+  minor version increment is for added functionality, and patch version
+  increments are for bugfixes.
+
 Using the profiling runtime without static initializers
 =======================================================
 
@@ -238,6 +258,18 @@ without using static initializers, do th
   otherwise. Calling this function multiple times appends profile data to an
   existing on-disk raw profile.
 
+Collecting coverage reports for the llvm project
+================================================
+
+To prepare a coverage report for llvm (and any of its sub-projects), add
+``-DLLVM_BUILD_INSTRUMENTED_COVERAGE=On`` to the cmake configuration. Raw
+profiles will be written to ``$BUILD_DIR/profiles/``. To prepare an html
+report, run ``llvm/utils/prepare-code-coverage-artifact.py``.
+
+To specify an alternate directory for raw profiles, use
+``-DLLVM_PROFILE_DATA_DIR``. To change the size of the profile merge pool, use
+``-DLLVM_PROFILE_MERGE_POOL_SIZE``.
+
 Drawbacks and limitations
 =========================