Re: [DISCUSSION] GCOV support

[Aleksandar Markovic]

четвртак, 18. јун 2020., Aleksandar Markovic <aleksandar.qemu.devel@gmail.com> је написао/ла:

Hi, Alex, Peter.

You may recall that I signalled on couple of occasions that there are some problems related to gcov builds in out-of-tree builds.

It turned out that those problems manifest on some opder Linux distribution, and are always related to the gcovr being older than 4.1. For older gcovr, the tool simply doesn't connect properly executable and its source files, and no coverage report is generated (or perhaps only some small portions, but, on any case, gcov builds are virtually unusable).

I propose that we don't bother supporting systems with gcovr older than 4.1. We could check version of gcovr in confugure, and refuse gcov builds if that version is older than 4.1.

More precisely, I propose that "configure --enable-gcov" should not be possible if gcovr version is older than 4.1, or, of course, absent from the system altogether.

(Note: In-tree gcov builds do not have this problem, older gcovr work perfectly, but we anyway want to switch to out-of-tree builds only.)

 

This would remove one obstacle towards removing the support of in-tree builds. (I am not sure about future Mason-based builds, I hope they will support gcov builds, and work in almost identical way.).

If you agree with proposal on the level of design, Alex, can you perhaps write the corresponding patch, I gather you are more familiar with modifying configure than me? Or I should do it?

Warmly,

Aleksandar