Get started - Cover Reports
Get started with Diffblue Cover Reports - in short, check the prerequisites, download and install Cover Reports, create and upload a reports bundle, and finally, visualize your coverage data.
Cover Reports is a server-side tool accessed via a web browser - Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox. Cover CLI and/or Cover Pipeline are used to create and upload coverage data - Cover Reports is used to visualize that data. This getting started topic focuses on Cover CLI - for information on using Cover Reports with Cover Pipeline see Cover Pipeline.
This topic covers Docker install only. As an alternative, Cover Reports can be installed from a zip archive or exe installer. These provide for running Cover Reports as a Windows Service, Linux Service, Windows .bat, or macOS/Linux .sh, and removes the need to use Docker. These also provide various database configuration options to provide further flexibility. See Install and update Cover Reports for details.
eLearning
Prefer video? No problem. Check out our overview video.
1. Check the prerequisites
A summary of Cover Reports prerequisites are listed below - see Specs & Reqs for full details.
Client workstation - Cover Reports Contributor:
Diffblue Cover CLI
JaCoCo 0.8.3+
Network connectivity between the user's workstation and the Cover Reports server.
Client workstation - Cover Reports User:
The latest version of Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 or higher.
Network connectivity between the user's workstation and the Cover Reports server.
Server hosting Cover Reports - Cover Reports Administrator::
Docker Engine 20.10.17
4GB RAM (8GB recommended), 2GB* minimum available disk space, 4 CPU cores.
2GB Java heap allocation, 4GB recommended.
Docker Compose v2.10.2
Network connectivity between the server and client workstations.
Internet connection if using Docker Hub for install.
2. Install Diffblue Cover Reports
Using the link provided by Diffblue, download the Cover Reports
.tar.gz
file (e.g.diffblue-cover-reports-2023.07.02.tar.gz
) to the server you plan to use to host Cover Reports. Contact Diffblue Support if you don't have the download link.From the directory containing the Cover Reports
.tar.gz
file, load the Docker bundle:
In your shell, navigate to your preferred install directory (we'll now refer to this as
$COVER_REPORTS_HOME
). Using the link provided by Diffblue, download the Cover Reports Docker Compose filedocker-compose.yml
to$COVER_REPORTS_HOME
. Contact Diffblue Support if you don't have the download link.From the
$COVER_REPORTS_HOME
directory, start Cover Reports:
Finally, open a browser on a client PC that has access to the Cover Reports server and navigate to the Cover Reports Home Page (
<HOSTURL>:8080
).
3. Create and upload a reports bundle
Use Cover CLI to create a coverage data file for your project - this is referred to as a "reports bundle". You can do this on your own project, or you can use the example PetClinic Spring project that's used as part of the Get started - Cover CLI topic.
Note that, to save you a little time, there's a demo project provided as part of Cover Reports so you can click Open Demo Project
from the Reports splash screen and skip this Cover CLI step. If you or your organization have already used Cover Reports, this option won't be available.
The optional arguments used with dcover create
perform the following:
--coverage-reports
is used create the coverage data files using Cover and JaCoCo.--upload
is used to define the URL to upload the reports bundle to - i.e. the URL for your Cover Reports server install. Note that HTTPS direct is currently not supported.
4. Visualize your data
Now the fun bit - taking a look at your coverage data. Please see Cover Reports User for a detailed guide through the visualisation dashboard.
Next steps
Now you're up and running with Cover Reports, use Cover CLI to create reports bundles for your own projects and start to build your data sets over time. In general, Cover Reports is pretty straightforward to use, especially from a UI perspective, but check out the Cover Reports topic for more details on using Cover Reports.
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