JProbe Tasks

# JProbe

by

- Stephane Bailliez (sbailliez@imediation.com)

## Introduction

This task runs the tools from the JProbe suite.
For more information, visit http://www.sitraka.com. An evaluation version is available for download if you already don't own it.

This task has been written using JProbe Suite Server Side 3.0.

It is highly recommended to read the JProbe documentation to understand the values of the command line arguments described below. This document is less complete than the manual, it only gives the basic information and is not intended as a replacement to the manual.

## Tasks

JPCoverage | Measure coverage of Java code.
JPCovMerge | Merge different snapshots into one.
JPCovReport | Create a report from a snapshot

## JPCoverage

Perform code covering functions by comparing source code line execution to the program’s source code as a whole.

### Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
home | The directory where JProbe is intalled. | Yes
vm | Indicates which virtual machine to run. Must be one of "jdk117", "jdk118" or "java2".If "java2" is specified, the user is also required to specify a path via `javaexe`, otherwise it will check if the current executing VM is 1.2+ and use its java.home property to determine its location. | No, default to embedded VM if 1.2+
javaexe | The path to the java executable. | No, use only for java2 vm.
applet | Run an applet. The default is false, unless the file under analysis ends with htm or html. | No, default is "false".
seedname | Seed name for the temporary snapshot files (files will be named seed.jpc, seed1.jpc, seed2.jpc, ...) | No, default to "snapshot"
exitprompt | Toggles display of the console prompt: "Press Enter to close this window." "always": Always displays the prompt. "never": Never displays the prompt. "error": Only displays prompt after an error. | No, default is "never"
finalsnapshot | Type of snapshot to send at program termination. Must be one of "none","coverage","all" | No, default to "coverage"
recordfromstart | Must be one of "coverage", "all", "none". If you want Coverage to start analyzing as soon as the program begins to run, use "all". If not, select "none". | No, default to "coverage"
warnlevel | Set warning level (0-3, where 0 is the least amount of warnings). | No, default to 0
snapshotdir | The path to the directory where snapshot files are stored. Choose a directory that is reachable by both the remote and local computers, and enter the same path on the command line and in the viewer. | No, default to current directory
workingdir | The physical path to the working directory for the VM. | No, default is current directory.
tracknatives | Test native methods. Note that testing native methods with Java 2 disables the JIT | No, default to "false".
classname | the name of the class to analyze. | Yes

### Nested Elements

#### classpath

`jpcoverage` supports a nested `<classpath>` element, that represents a PATH like structure.

#### jvmarg

Additional parameters may be passed to the VM via nested `<jvmarg>` attributes, for example:

>     <jpcoverage home="c:\jprobe" classname="MyClass">
>       <jvmarg value="-classic"/>
>       <classpath path="."/>
>     </jpcoverage>

would run the coverage on "MyClass" in classic mode VM.

`<jvmarg>` allows all attributes described in Command line arguments.

#### arg

Parameters may be passed to the executed class via nested `<arg>` attributes, as described in Command line arguments.

#### socket

Define a host and port to connect to if you want to do remote viewing.

Attribute | Description | Required
host | the host name/ip of the machine on which the Viewer is running | No, default to localhost
port | The port number on which you will connect to the Viewer | No, default to 4444

#### filters

Defines class/method filters based on pattern matching. The syntax is filters is similar to a fileset.

Attribute | Description | Required
defaultexclude | As a default, the coverage excludes all classes and methods. Default filters are equivalent to
      <filters>
        <exclude class="*" method="*"/>
      </filters>
| No, default to "true"

As seen above, nested elements are `include` and `exclude` with a `name` attribute.

> Attribute | Description | Required
> class | The class mask as a simple regular expression | No, defaults to "*"
> method | The method mask as a simple regular expression | No, defaults to "*"
> enabled | is the filter enabled? | No, defaults to true

### Example of filters

>     <filters>
>         <include class="com.mycompany.*" method="*"/>
>         <exclude class="com.mycompany.MyClass" method="test*"/>
>     </filters>

reports the coverage on all packages, classes and methods from `com.mycompany` except all methods starting by `test` on the class `MyClass` in the package `com.mycompany`

#### triggers

Define a number of events to use for interacting with the collection of data performed during coverage. For example you may run a whole application but only decide to collect data once it reaches a certain method and once it exits another one.

The only type of nested element is the `method` element (triggers are performed on method) and it has the following attributes:

Attribute | Description | Required
name | The name of the method(s) as a regular expression. The name is the fully qualified name on the form `package.classname.method` | Yes
event | the event on the method that will trigger the action. Must be "enter" or "exit". | Yes
action | the action to execute. Must be one of "clear", "pause", "resume", "snapshot", "suspend", or "exit". They respectively clear recording, pause recording, resume recording, take a snapshot, suspend the recording and exit the program. | Yes

### Example of triggers

>     <triggers>
>       <method name="ClassName.*()" event="enter" action="snapshot"/>
>       <method name="ClassName.MethodName()" event="exit" action="exit"/>
>     </triggers>

Will take a snapshot when it enters any method of the class `ClassName` and will exit the program once it exits the method `MethodName` of the same class.

## JPCovMerge

### Description

Perform the merge of several snapshots into a single one.

### Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
home | The directory where JProbe is installed. | Yes
tofile | the output filename that will be the result of the name. | Yes
verbose | Perform the merge in verbose mode giving details about the snapshot processing. | No. Default to false

`jpcovmerge` collects snapshots using the nested `<FileSet>` element.

### Example of merge

>     <jpcovmerge home="c:\jprobe" tofile="merge.jpc" verbose="true">
>       <fileset dir="./snapshots">
>         <include name="snap*.jpc"/>
>       </fileset>
>     </jpcovmerge>

would run the merge in verbose mode on all snapshot files starting by `snap` in the directory `snapshots`. The resulting file will be named `merge.jpc`.

## JPCovReport

### Description

Generate a readable/printable report of a snapshot. Note that you will need Jakarta Oro in Ant classpath, to run the `reference` feature.

### Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
home | The directory where JProbe is intalled. | Yes
format | The format of the generated report. Must be "xml", "html" or "text" | No, default to "html"
type | The type of report to be generated. Must be "executive", "summary", "detailed" or "verydetailed" | No. Default to "detailed"
percent | A numeric value for the threshold for printing methods. Must be between 0 and 100. | No, default to 100
snapshot | The name of the snapshot file that is the source to the report. | Yes
tofile | The name of the generated output file | Yes
includesource | Include text of the source code lines. Only applies to format="xml" and type="verydetailed" | No. Defaults to "yes"

#### sourcepath

Path to source files can be set via nested sourcepath elements that are PATH like structures.

#### reference (only applies to format="xml")

A reference is a set of classes whose coverage information will be checked against. Since Coverage is only able to give you information about loaded classes, it will only report classes that were at least used in some points in your tests, therefore you will not be able to know what classes are not exercised at all during your tests. The reference is an additional feature that will analyze the bytecode of all classes in a given classpath that match some filters and modify the XML report accordingly. In short, it will:

- remove the classes that do not exists in the reference classpath. (For example you might have in your report some helper test classes that you do not want to appear in the report, but are unable to filter without adding hundred of filters for all your classes).
- add classes that exists in the reference set and match the filters but are not reported.
- remove abstract methods that are incorrectly reported in JProbe 3.0 (should be fixed in a later SP)
- remove classes/methods that do not match the filters.

> #### classpath

> Path to the reference set of files can be set via nested classpath elements that are PATH like structures.

> #### filters

> Nested elements are `include` and `exclude` with a `class` and `method` attribute.

> Attribute | Description | Required
> class | The class mask as a simple regular expression | No, default to *
> method | The method mask as a simple regular expression | No, default to *

### Example of report

>     <jpcovreport home="c:\jprobe" snapshot="merge.jpc" format="xml" tofile="result.xml">
>       <sourcepath path="./src"/>
>       <reference>
>         <classpath path="./bin/classes"/>
>         <filters>
>           <include class="com.mycompany.*"/>
>           <exclude class="com.mycompany.MyClass" method="test*"/>
>         </filters>
>       </reference>
>     </jpcovreport>

would generate the report of the file `merge.jpc` and write it to `result.xml` using the source path `src`. As well, it will modify the result.xml by analyzing all classes in the `./bin/classes` that are port of the package `com.mycompany` except the method that start by `test` from the class `MyClass`.

### Recommendation

If you generate your main code and your testcases in a separate directory, say bin/classes and test/classes. You should mostly end up with a reference such as:

>     <reference>
>         <classpath path="./bin/classes"/>
>     </reference>

With such a reference, your XML report will be cleaned up against parasite classes from your testcases (that as a common practice, generally match the exact package structure of the class you exercise).

### HTML reports

You will find in Ant etc directory a stylesheet called coverage-frames.xsl. This file can be used to generate a framed report a la javadoc similar to the one for JUnit. It needs either Xalan 1.2.2 or Xalan 2.x.

Xalan 1.2.2 (you must have xalan.jar and bsf.jar in your classpath)

    <style processor="xalan" in="./reports/xml/results.xml" out="./reports/html/dummy.file"
     style="${ant.home}/etc/coverage-frames.xsl">
        <param name="output.dir" expression="'${basedir}/reports/html'"/>
    </style>

Xalan 2.x (note the parameter without single quote)

    <style processor="trax" in="./reports/xml/results.xml" out="./reports/html/dummy.file"
     style="${ant.home}/etc/coverage-frames.xsl">
      <param name="output.dir" expression="${basedir}/reports/html"/>
    </style>

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