How do I read an Istanbul Coverage Report?
I've always used Jasmine for my unit tests, but recently I started using Istanbul to give me code coverage reports. I mean I get the gist of what they are trying to tell me, but I don't really know what each of these percentages represent (Stmts, Branches, Funcs, Lines). So far Googling I have been unable to find a solid explanation/resource.
Question: Like I said I get the gist of it, but can someone post either a proper explanation or a link to a proper explanation?
Tertiary Question: Is there any way to identify what specific parts of your code aren't covered? So far without really grokking this report I'm basically guessing.
-------------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|
File | % Stmts |% Branches | % Funcs | % Lines |
-------------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|
controllers/ | 88.1 | 77.78 | 78.57 | 88.1 |
dashboard.js | 88.1 | 77.78 | 78.57 | 88.1 |
-------------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|
All files | 88.1 | 77.78 | 78.57 | 88.1 |
-------------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|
There are a number of coverage criteria, the main ones being:
- Function coverage Has each function (or subroutine) in the program been called?
- Statement coverage Has each statement in the program been executed?
- Branch coverage Has each branch (also called DD-path) of each control structure (such as in if and case statements) been executed? For example, given an if statement, have both the true and false branches been executed? Another way of saying this is, has every edge in the program been executed?
- Line coverage has each executable line in the source file been executed?
For each case, the percentage represents executed code vs not-executed code, which equals each fraction in percent format (e.g: 50% branches, 1/2).
In the file report:
-
'E'stands for 'else path not taken', which means that for the marked if/else statement, the 'if' path has been tested but not the 'else'. -
'I'stands for 'if path not taken', which is the opposite case: the 'if' hasn't been tested. - The
xNin left column is the amount of times that line has been executed. - Not executed lines, or pieces of code, will be highlighted in red.
This has been verified for Istanbul v0.4.0, I'm not sure if this still applies for subsequent versions, but being that library is based on solid theoretic principles, behavior shouldn't change too much for newer versions.
It also provides some color codes -
Pink: statements not covered.
Orange: functions not covered.
Yellow: branches not covered.
Full Istanbul docs here:
https://istanbul.js.org
For more in-depth theory on code coverage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_coverage
Hope it helps!
Running istanbul should also produce an HTML file for the report (should be in the coverage folder). This HTML should give you drill-down information when you click on files/folders.
The percentage of functions covered is calculated by the number of functions that were called during tests, divided by total number of functions. Same goes for lines and statements (which will usually be close to each other unless you have very long statements).
Branches mean decision points like if-else blocks. For example, say your code only contains one if-else statement, and your tests only pass through the if part but not the else part, then your branches percentage should be 50%.
Hope that makes things clearer.