CLion 2020.1 Help

Code Coverage

In CLion, you can run CMake applications and tests with code coverage measurements. Code coverage results provide the percentage of code lines executed during a run and the number of times a particular line was hit.

Compiler flags for code coverage

CLion relies on llvm-cov/gcov integration to collect and show code coverage data for your code. These tools require that you provide special coverage compiler flags in your CMakeLists.txt script.

See below the options for the flags depending on your compiler and the coverage tooling you prefer.

  • GCC

    -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage or --coverage

    In this case, the gcov tool will be used.

  • Clang

    You have two options here:

You can provide the flags by setting the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS variable (CMAKE_C_FLAGS for C projects) or using other alternatives like the add_compile_options command.

Running CMake applications or tests with coverage

After reloading your project with the added flags, you can use the Run with Coverage action for your CMake Application and test configurations (Boost.Test, Google Test, or Catch).

Run with Coverage is available from the toolbar next to the configuration switcher and from the gutter menu:

Run with Coverage

Run with Coverage

Reading coverage results

  • When coverage data is ready, the Coverage tool window opens up automatically. It shows the percentage of the files per folder and lines per file covered during the launch:

    Coverage tool window

  • In any file, you can check the gutter indicator and click it next to a particular line to learn how many times it was hit:

    Coverage line hits

    A line executed fully is marked green. Yellow marker means that it was only partically executed.

    To modify the colors of coverage highlighting, click icons.general.settings.png or go to Settings / Preferences | Editor | Color Scheme | General and expand the Line Coverage node.

  • CLion also shows coverage statistics in the Project view:

    Code coverage results in Project view

Merging results from several runs

When you rerun coverage analysis, CLion prompts you to choose how you prefer the new results to be presented:

Merging several coverage suites

Add to active suites – new results will be added to the previously collected statistics.

Replace active suites – the already collected data will be overwritten.

Do not apply collected coverage data – new results will be ignored.

Configure the coverage settings

Code coverage settings are gathered in the Settings / Preferences | Build, Execution, Deployment | Coverage:

Code coverage settings

In the Tools section, you can provide custom paths to gcov / llvm-cov / llvm-profdata. By default, CLion takes the paths from the PATH environment varible.

Troubleshooting and current limitations

  • If you get empty coverage reports, check whether your compiler version matches the version of gcov / llvm-cov tool (default or custom) that you are using.

    Compiler and coverage tool mismatch notification

    Keep this in mind when changing compilers or switching from one Windows toolchain to another.

  • Code coverage is not yet supported for the Remote toolchain (CPP-17709).

Last modified: 16 July 2020