test_cover.pl -- Clause coverage analysis

The purpose of this module is to find which part of the program has been used by a certain goal. Usage is defined in terms of clauses that have fired, separated in clauses that succeeded at least once and clauses that failed on each occasion.

This module relies on the SWI-Prolog tracer hooks. It modifies these hooks and collects the results, after which it restores the debugging environment. This has some limitations:

• The performance degrades significantly (about 10 times)
• It is not possible to use the debugger during coverage analysis
• The cover analysis tool is currently not thread-safe.

The result is represented as a list of clause-references. As the references to clauses of dynamic predicates cannot be guaranteed, these are omitted from the result.

bug

- Relies heavily on SWI-Prolog internals. We have considered using a meta-interpreter for this purpose, but it is nearly impossible to do 100% complete meta-interpretation of Prolog. Example problem areas include handling cuts in control-structures and calls from non-interpreted meta-predicates.

To be done

- Provide detailed information organised by predicate. Possibly annotate the source with coverage information.

 show_coverage(:Goal) is semidet

 show_coverage(:Goal, +Options) is semidet

show_coverage(:Goal, +Modules:list(atom)) is semidet

Report on coverage by Goal. Goal is executed as in once/1. Options processed:

modules(+Modules)

Provide a detailed report on Modules. For backwards compatibility this is the same as providing a list of modules in the second argument.

annotate(+Bool)

Create an annotated file for the detailed results. This is implied if the ext or dir option are specified.

ext(+Ext)

Extension to use for the annotated file. Default is `.cov`.

dir(+Dir)

Dump the annotations in the given directory. If not given, the annotated files are created in the same directory as the source file. Each clause that is related to a physical line in the file is annotated with one of:

###	Clause was never executed.
++N	Clause was executed N times and always succeeded
--N	Clause was executed N times and never succeeded
+N-M	Clause was succeeded N times and failed M times

 assert_cover(+Port, +Frame) is det

Assert coverage of the current clause. We monitor two ports: the unify port to see which clauses we entered, and the exit port to see which completed successfully.

Undocumented predicates

The following predicates are exported, but not or incorrectly documented.

 show_coverage(Arg1, Arg2)