GCOV(1)

📦
version 13.5.0 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

👑 GCOV(1) — bestie, it's gcov (the GNU one) 💖

okay so like, imagine you're a compiler-adjacent tool and you're THAT girl. gcov is the coverage testing tool from GNU, and she's here to tell you exactly which lines of your code actually ran. let's go 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

gcov — coverage testing tool 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gcov [-v|--version] [-h|--help]
     [-a|--all-blocks]
     [-b|--branch-probabilities]
     [-c|--branch-counts]
     [-d|--display-progress]
     [-f|--function-summaries]
     [-j|--json-format]
     [-H|--human-readable]
     [-k|--use-colors]
     [-l|--long-file-names]
     [-m|--demangled-names]
     [-n|--no-output]
     [-o|--object-directory directory|file]
     [-p|--preserve-paths]
     [-q|--use-hotness-colors]
     [-r|--relative-only]
     [-s|--source-prefix directory]
     [-t|--stdout]
     [-u|--unconditional-branches]
     [-x|--hash-filenames]
     files

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

gcov is a test coverage program. you use it in concert with GCC, like a little duo 🫶 — together you analyze your programs so you can make more efficient, faster running code, and find the parts of your program that nobody ever tested. you can also use gcov as a profiling tool, to help discover where your optimization efforts will best affect your code. and you can run it alongside the other profiling tool, gprof, to figure out which parts of your code are eating the most computing time. iconic behavior honestly.

Profiling tools help you analyze your code's performance. Using a profiler such as gcov or gprof, you can find out some basic performance statistics, such as:

  • how often each line of code executes
  • what lines of code are actually executed
  • how much computing time each section of code uses

Once you know these things about how your code works when compiled, you can look at each module to see which modules should be optimized. gcov helps you determine where to work on optimization. no cap.

Software developers also use coverage testing in concert with testsuites, to make sure software is actually good enough for a release. Tetsuites can verify that a program works as expected; a coverage program tests to see how much of the program is exercised by the testsuite. Developers can then determine what kinds of test cases need to be added to the testsuites to create both better testing and a better final product. it's giving "quality control but make it ✨data✨".

You should compile your code without optimization if you plan to use gcov because the optimization, by combining some lines of code into one function, may not give you as much information as you need to look for hot spots where the code is using a great deal of computer time. Likewise, because gcov accumulates statistics by line (at the lowest resolution), it works best with a programming style that places only one statement on each line. If you use complicated macros that expand to loops or to other control structures, the statistics are less helpful — they only report on the line where the macro call appears. 😭 If your complex macros behave like functions, you can replace them with inline functions to solve this problem. glow-up for your macros fr fr.

gcov creates a logfile called sourcefile.gcov which indicates how many times each line of a source file sourcefile.c has executed. You can use these logfiles along with gprof to aid in fine-tuning the performance of your programs. gprof gives timing information you can use along with the information you get from gcov.

🚨 important reality check: gcov works only on code compiled with GCC. It is not compatible with any other profiling or test coverage mechanism. she does not play with others 💀

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -a, --all-blocks — write individual execution counts for every basic block. normally gcov only gives you execution counts for the main blocks of a line. with this, you can clock whether blocks within a single line aren't being executed. detective mode 🔍
  • -b, --branch-probabilities — write branch frequencies to the output file, AND write branch summary info to the standard output. this option lets you see how often each branch in your program was taken. Unconditional branches will not be shown, unless the -u option is given. 🙈
  • -c, --branch-counts — write branch frequencies as the number of branches taken, rather than the percentage of branches taken. raw numbers era.
  • -d, --display-progress — display the progress on the standard output. watching paint dry but make it cute ✨
  • -f, --function-summaries — output summaries for each function in addition to the file level summary. more data, more slay.
  • -h, --help — display help about using gcov (on the standard output), and exit without doing any further processing. just vibes, no work.
  • -j, --json-format — output gcov file in an easy-to-parse JSON intermediate format which does not require source code for generation. the JSON file is compressed with gzip compression algorithm and the files have .gcov.json.gz extension. very machine-readable of her.

Structure of the JSON is following:

{
  "current_working_directory": "foo/bar",
  "data_file": "a.out",
  "format_version": "1",
  "gcc_version": "11.1.1 20210510"
  "files": ["$file"]
}

Fields of the root element have following semantics:

  • current_working_directory: working directory where a compilation unit was compiled
  • data_file: name of the data file (GCDA)
  • format_version: semantic version of the format
  • gcc_version: version of the GCC compiler

Each file has the following form:

{
  "file": "a.c",
  "functions": ["$function"],
  "lines": ["$line"]
}

Fields of the file element have following semantics:

  • file_name: name of the source file

Each function has the following form:

{
  "blocks": 2,
  "blocks_executed": 2,
  "demangled_name": "foo",
  "end_column": 1,
  "end_line": 4,
  "execution_count": 1,
  "name": "foo",
  "start_column": 5,
  "start_line": 1
}

Fields of the function element have following semantics:

  • blocks: number of blocks that are in the function
  • blocks_executed: number of executed blocks of the function
  • demangled_name: demangled name of the function
  • end_column: column in the source file where the function ends
  • end_line: line in the source file where the function ends
  • execution_count: number of executions of the function
  • name: name of the function
  • start_column: column in the source file where the function begins
  • start_line: line in the source file where the function begins

Note that line numbers and column numbers number from 1. In the current implementation, start_line and start_column do not include any template parameters and the leading return type but that this is likely to be fixed in the future. (future update pending bestie 🕐)

Each line has the following form:

{
  "branches": ["$branch"],
  "count": 2,
  "line_number": 15,
  "unexecuted_block": false,
  "function_name": "foo",
}

Branches are present only with -b option. Fields of the line element have following semantics:

  • count: number of executions of the line
  • line_number: line number
  • unexecuted_block: flag whether the line contains an unexecuted block (not all statements on the line are executed)
  • function_name: a name of a function this line belongs to (for a line with an inlined statements can be not set)

Each branch has the following form:

{
  "count": 11,
  "fallthrough": true,
  "throw": false
}

Fields of the branch element have following semantics:

  • count: number of executions of the branch
  • fallthrough: true when the branch is a fall through branch
  • throw: true when the branch is an exceptional branch
  • -H, --human-readable — write counts in human readable format (like 24.6k). because reading 24600 is not the moment 💀
  • -k, --use-colors — use colors for lines of code that have zero coverage. red color for non-exceptional lines and cyan for exceptional. same colors are used for basic blocks with -a option. aesthetic AND functional 🎨
  • -l, --long-file-names — create long file names for included source files. For example, if the header file x.h contains code, and was included in the file a.c, then running gcov on the file a.c will produce an output file called a.c##x.h.gcov instead of x.h.gcov. This can be useful if x.h is included in multiple source files and you want to see the individual contributions. If you use the -p option, both the including and included file names will be complete path names. receipts, itemized 🧾
  • -m, --demangled-names — display demangled function names in output. The default is to show mangled function names. (mangled = the cryptic one, demangled = the readable one, iykyk)
  • -n, --no-output — do not create the gcov output file. sometimes you just want the numbers, not the file 🫣
  • -o directory|file, --object-directory directory, --object-file file</bold> — specify either the directory containing the gcov data files, or the object path name. The .gcno, and .gcda data files are searched for using this option. If a directory is specified, the data files are in that directory and named after the input file name, without its extension. If a file is specified here, the data files are named after that file, without its extension. telling her where the goods live 📍
  • -p, --preserve-paths — preserve complete path information in the names of generated .gcov files. Without this option, just the filename component is used. With this option, all directories are used, with / characters translated to # characters, . directory components removed and unremoveable .. components renamed to ^. This is useful if sourcefiles are in several different directories. path chaos, beautifully managed 💅
  • -q, --use-hotness-colors — emit perf-like colored output for hot lines. Legend of the color scale is printed at the very beginning of the output file. hot girl summer but for hot code 🔥
  • -r, --relative-only — only output information about source files with a relative pathname (after source prefix elision). Absolute paths are usually system header files and coverage of any inline functions therein is normally uninteresting. not everything deserves your attention, bestie 💅
  • -s directory, --source-prefix directory — a prefix for source file names that gets stripped off when gcov generates the output coverage files. Obsessed with this one when you build in a separate directory and you do not want that source-directory pathname showing up when gcov decides what to call the output files. Heads up though: this prefix detection happens before gcov works out whether the source file is absolute. order matters, bestie.
  • -t, --stdout — output goes to standard output instead of into output files. no files, just vibes ✨.
  • -u, --unconditional-branches — when branch probabilities are shown, also include the ones for unconditional branches. ngl unconditional branches are normally not interesting.
  • -v, --version — display the gcov version number (on the standard output) and then exit without doing any further processing. bye 👋.
  • -w, --verbose — print verbose informations related to basic blocks and arcs. it's giving details.
  • -x, --hash-filenames — so when you're using --preserve-paths, gcov uses the full pathname of the source files to make an output filename. that can lead to long filenames that overflow filesystem limits 😭. this option creates names of the form source-file##md5.gcov, where the source-file component is the final filename part and the md5 component is calculated from the full mangled name that would have been used otherwise. basically it's the alternative to the --preserve-paths on systems which have a filesystem limit. 🫶

okay so how do you actually run this thing 💅

gcov should be run with the current directory the same as that when you invoked the compiler. otherwise it will not be able to locate the source files. fr fr, don't skip this.

gcov produces files called mangledname.gcov in the current directory. these contain the coverage information of the source file they correspond to. one .gcov file is produced for each source (or header) file containing code, which was compiled to produce the data files. the mangledname part of the output file name is usually simply the source file name, but can be something more complicated if the -l or -p options are given. refer to those options for details 👑.

if you invoke gcov with multiple input files, the contributions from each input file are summed. typically you would invoke it with the same list of files as the final link of your executable.

the .gcov files contain the : separated fields along with program source code. the format is

<execution_count>:<line_number>:<source line text>

additional block information may succeed each line, when requested by command line option. the execution_count is - for lines containing no code. unexecuted lines are marked ##### or =====, depending on whether they are reachable by non-exceptional paths or only exceptional paths such as C++ exception handlers, respectively. given the -a option, unexecuted blocks are marked $$$$$ or %%%%%, depending on whether a basic block is reachable via non-exceptional or exceptional paths. executed basic blocks having a statement with zero execution_count end with * character and are colored with magenta color with the -k option. this functionality is not supported in Ada.

note that GCC can completely remove the bodies of functions that are not needed -- for instance if they are inlined everywhere. such functions are marked with -, which can be confusing 🙈. use the -fkeep-inline-functions and -fkeep-static-functions options to retain these functions and allow gcov to properly show their execution_count.

some lines of information at the start have line_number of zero. these preamble lines are of the form

-:0:<tag>:<value>

the ordering and number of these preamble lines will be augmented as gcov development progresses --- do not rely on them remaining unchanged. use tag to locate a particular preamble line.

the additional block information is of the form

<tag> <information>

the information is human readable, but designed to be simple enough for machine parsing too. iykyk.

when printing percentages, 0% and 100% are only printed when the values are exactly 0% and 100% respectively. other values which would conventionally be rounded to 0% or 100% are instead printed as the nearest non-boundary value. no fake 100s in this house 💅

when using gcov, you must first compile your program with a special GCC option --coverage. this tells the compiler to generate additional information needed by gcov (basically a flow graph of the program) and also includes additional code in the object files for generating the extra profiling information needed by gcov. these additional files are placed in the directory where the object file is located.

running the program will cause profile output to be generated. for each source file compiled with -fprofile-arcs, an accompanying .gcda file will be placed in the object file directory.

running gcov with your program's source file names as arguments will now produce a listing of the code along with frequency of execution for each line. for example, if your program is called tmp.cpp, this is what you see when you use the basic gcov facility:

$ g++ --coverage tmp.cpp -c
$ g++ --coverage tmp.o
$ a.out
$ gcov tmp.cpp -m
File 'tmp.cpp'
Lines executed:92.86% of 14
Creating 'tmp.cpp.gcov'

the file tmp.cpp.gcov contains output from gcov. here is a sample:

        -:    0:Source:tmp.cpp
        -:    0:Working directory:/home/gcc/testcase
        -:    0:Graph:tmp.gcno
        -:    0:Data:tmp.gcda
        -:    0:Runs:1
        -:    0:Programs:1
        -:    1:#include <stdio.h>
        -:    2:
        -:    3:template<class T>
        -:    4:class Foo
        -:    5:{
        -:    6:  public:
       1*:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<char>::Foo():
    #####:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<int>::Foo():
        1:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
       2*:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<char>::inc():
    #####:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<int>::inc():
        2:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
        -:    9:
        -:   10:  private:
        -:   11:  int b;
        -:   12:};
        -:   13:
        -:   14:template class Foo<int>;
        -:   15:template class Foo<char>;
        -:   16:
        -:   17:int
        1:   18:main (void)
        -:   19:{
        -:   20:  int i, total;
        1:   21:  Foo<int> counter;
        -:   22:
        1:   23:  counter.inc();
        1:   24:  counter.inc();
        1:   25:  total = 0;
        -:   26:
       11:   27:  for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
       10:   28:    total += i;
        -:   29:
       1*:   30:  int v = total > 100 ? 1 : 2;
        -:   31:
        1:   32:  if (total != 45)
    #####:   33:    printf ("Failure\n");
        -:   34:  else
        1:   35:    printf ("Success\n");
        1:   36:  return 0;
        -:   37:}

note that line 7 is shown in the report multiple times. first occurrence presents total number of execution of the line and the next two belong to instances of class Foo constructors. as you can also see, line 30 contains some unexecuted basic blocks and thus execution count has asterisk symbol. iconic, honestly ⭐

when you use the -a option, you will get individual block counts, and the output looks like this:

        -:    0:Source:tmp.cpp
        -:    0:Working directory:/home/gcc/testcase
        -:    0:Graph:tmp.gcno
        -:    0:Data:tmp.gcda
        -:    0:Runs:1
        -:    0:Programs:1
        -:    1:#include <stdio.h>
        -:    2:
        -:    3:template<class T>
        -:    4:class Foo
        -:    5:{
        -:    6:  public:
       1*:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<char>::Foo():
    #####:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<int>::Foo():
        1:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
       2*:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<char>::inc():
    #####:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<int>::inc():
        2:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
        -:    9:
        -:   10:  private:
        -:   11:  int b;
        -:   12:};
        -:   13:
        -:   14:template class Foo<int>;
        -:   15:template class Foo<char>;
        -:   16:
        -:   17:int
        1:   18:main (void)
        -:   19:{
        -:   20:  int i, total;
        1:   21:  Foo<int> counter;
        1:   21-block  0
        -:   22:
        1:   23:  counter.inc();
        1:   23-block  0
        1:   24:  counter.inc();
        1:   24-block  0
        1:   25:  total = 0;
        -:   26:
       11:   27:  for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        1:   27-block  0
       11:   27-block  1
       10:   28:    total += i;
       10:   28-block  0
        -:   29:
       1*:   30:  int v = total > 100 ? 1 : 2;
        1:   30-block  0
    %%%%%:   30-block  1
        1:   30-block  2
        -:   31:
        1:   32:  if (total != 45)
        1:   32-block  0
    #####:   33:    printf ("Failure\n");
    %%%%%:   33-block  0
        -:   34:  else
        1:   35:    printf ("Success\n");
        1:   35-block  0
        1:   36:  return 0;
        1:   36-block  0
        -:   37:}

okay so in this mode, every single basic block only shows up on one line — literally the last line of the block. That's it, that's the vibe. 💅

Which means a multi-line block only contributes to the execution count of that last line, and the other lines just… don't get shown as containing code, unless previous blocks end on those lines. The total execution count of a line is what's displayed, and then the lines after it show the execution counts for the individual blocks that end on that line. And after each block? The branch and call counts of that block get shown too — but only if the -b option is given. ✨

Also, lowkey important: because of the way GCC instruments calls, a call count can totally show up after a line that has no individual blocks. And if you look at the example, line 33 contains a basic block that was not executed. at all. 💀

When you use the -b option, your output looks like this:

        -:    0:Source:tmp.cpp
        -:    0:Working directory:/home/gcc/testcase
        -:    0:Graph:tmp.gcno
        -:    0:Data:tmp.gcda
        -:    0:Runs:1
        -:    0:Programs:1
        -:    1:#include <stdio.h>
        -:    2:
        -:    3:template<class T>
        -:    4:class Foo
        -:    5:{
        -:    6:  public:
       1*:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<char>::Foo():
function Foo<char>::Foo() called 0 returned 0% blocks executed 0%
    #####:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
Foo<int>::Foo():
function Foo<int>::Foo() called 1 returned 100% blocks executed 100%
        1:    7:  Foo(): b (1000) {}
------------------
       2*:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<char>::inc():
function Foo<char>::inc() called 0 returned 0% blocks executed 0%
    #####:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
Foo<int>::inc():
function Foo<int>::inc() called 2 returned 100% blocks executed 100%
        2:    8:  void inc () { b++; }
------------------
        -:    9:
        -:   10:  private:
        -:   11:  int b;
        -:   12:};
        -:   13:
        -:   14:template class Foo<int>;
        -:   15:template class Foo<char>;
        -:   16:
        -:   17:int
function main called 1 returned 100% blocks executed 81%
        1:   18:main (void)
        -:   19:{
        -:   20:  int i, total;
        1:   21:  Foo<int> counter;
call    0 returned 100%
branch  1 taken 100% (fallthrough)
branch  2 taken 0% (throw)
        -:   22:
        1:   23:  counter.inc();
call    0 returned 100%
branch  1 taken 100% (fallthrough)
branch  2 taken 0% (throw)
        1:   24:  counter.inc();
call    0 returned 100%
branch  1 taken 100% (fallthrough)
branch  2 taken 0% (throw)
        1:   25:  total = 0;
        -:   26:
       11:   27:  for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
branch  0 taken 91% (fallthrough)
branch  1 taken 9%
       10:   28:    total += i;
        -:   29:
       1*:   30:  int v = total > 100 ? 1 : 2;
branch  0 taken 0% (fallthrough)
branch  1 taken 100%
        -:   31:
        1:   32:  if (total != 45)
branch  0 taken 0% (fallthrough)
branch  1 taken 100%
    #####:   33:    printf ("Failure\n");
call    0 never executed
branch  1 never executed
branch  2 never executed
        -:   34:  else
        1:   35:    printf ("Success\n");
call    0 returned 100%
branch  1 taken 100% (fallthrough)
branch  2 taken 0% (throw)
        1:   36:  return 0;
        -:   37:}

So for each function, a line gets printed telling you how many times the function was called, how many times it returned, and what percentage of the function's blocks were executed. Iconic little summary line. 👑

And for each basic block, a line gets printed after the last line of that block, describing the branch or call that ends it. Multiple basic blocks ending on the same source line? Then you'll get multiple branches and calls listed for that one single source line, and each branch and call gets its own number. Ngl there is no simple way to map these branches and calls back to source constructs — but generally speaking, the lowest numbered branch or call corresponds to the leftmost construct on the source line. ✨

For a branch, if it was executed at least once, you get a percentage: number of times the branch was taken divided by the number of times the branch was executed. If it wasn't? The message "never executed" shows up. Simple as that. 🌸

For a call, if it was executed at least once, you get a percentage: number of times the call returned divided by the number of times the call was executed. That's usually 100%, but it can be less for functions that call "exit" or "longjmp" — those besties may not return every single time they're called. 🫶

The execution counts are cumulative. So if the example program ran again without removing the .gcda file, the count for the number of times each line in the source was executed would get added to the results of the previous run(s). And that's potentially useful in several ways — for example, it could be used to accumulate data over a number of program runs as part of a test verification suite, or to provide more accurate long-term information over a large number of program runs. Okay genius behaviour. 💜

The data in the .gcda files is saved immediately before the program exits. For each source file compiled with -fprofile-arcs, the profiling code first attempts to read in an existing .gcda file; if the file doesn't match the executable (differing number of basic block counts) it will ignore the contents of the file. Then it adds in the new execution counts, and finally writes the data to the file. slay. 🎀

✨ Using gcov with GCC Optimization ✨

If you're planning to use gcov to help optimize your code, bestie you must first compile your program with a special GCC option: --coverage. Aside from that? You can use any other GCC options you want. But — if you want to prove that every single line in your program was executed, you should not compile with optimization at the same time. 🚨

On some machines the optimizer can eliminate some simple code lines by combining them with other lines. For example, code like this:

if (a != b)
  c = 1;
else
  c = 0;

can be compiled into one instruction on some machines. And in that case, there is literally no way for gcov to calculate separate execution counts for each line, because there isn't separate code for each line. Hence the gcov output looks like this if you compiled the program with optimization:

      100:   12:if (a != b)
      100:   13:  c = 1;
      100:   14:else
      100:   15:  c = 0;

The output shows that this block of code, combined by optimization, executed 100 times. In one sense this result is correct, because there was only one instruction representing all four of these lines. However, the output does not indicate how many times the result was 0 and how many times the result was 1. 💀

Inlineable functions can create unexpected line counts too. Line counts are shown for the source code of the inlineable function, but what is shown depends on where the function is inlined — or if it is not inlined at all.

If the function is not inlined, the compiler must emit an out of line copy of the function, in any object file that needs it. So if fileA.o and fileB.o both contain out of line bodies of a particular inlineable function, they will also both contain coverage counts for that function. When fileA.o and fileB.o are linked together, the linker will, on many systems, select one of those out of line bodies for all calls to that function, and remove or ignore the other. Unfortunately, it will not remove the coverage counters for the unused function body. Hence when instrumented, all but one use of that function will show zero counts. 😭

If the function is inlined in several places, the block structure in each location might not be the same. For instance, a condition might now be calculable at compile time in some instances. And because the coverage of all the uses of the inline function will be shown for the same source lines, the line counts themselves might seem inconsistent. 🙈

Long-running applications can use the __gcov_reset and __gcov_dump facilities to restrict profile collection to the program region of interest. Calling __gcov_reset(void) will clear all run-time profile counters to zero, and calling __gcov_dump(void) will cause the profile information collected at that point to be dumped to .gcda output files. Instrumented applications use a static destructor with priority 99 to invoke the __gcov_dump function. Thus __gcov_dump is executed after all user defined static destructors, as well as handlers registered with atexit. 🌈

If an executable loads a dynamic shared object via dlopen functionality, -Wl,--dynamic-list-data is needed to dump all profile data.

The profiling run-time library reports various errors related to profile manipulation and profile saving. Errors are printed into standard error output or the GCOV_ERROR_FILE file, if the environment variable is used. In order to terminate immediately after an error occurs, set the GCOV_EXIT_AT_ERROR environment variable. That can help users find profile clashing which leads to a misleading profile. 🔍

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Copyright (c) 1996-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License" and "Funding Free Software", the Front-Cover texts being (a) (see below), and with the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below). A copy of the license is included in the gfdl(7) man page. 📜

(a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is:

"A GNU Manual"

(b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is:

"You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development."

and that's a wrap on this whole entire manpage, bestie 💖 written for gcc-13.5.0 and dated 2026-09-10 — go forth and profile, you absolute main character 🌟

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