What is code coverage?

When developing and testing quality software products, different types of software testing are performed based on various metrics. One such metric is code coverage.

Code coverage is a metric used in testing that allows testers to effectively measure the code level they've covered with their test suite. This helps them to access the quality of their test suite and analyze how comprehensively they've tested a piece of software.

Code coverage is a form of white-box testing that identifies sections of the program not exercised by a set of test cases and creates additional test cases to increase coverage. This technique also provides a quantitative measure of code coverage, allowing the developer to adjust their testing accordingly.

The real reasons for using code coverage are

• It helps you to determine the effectiveness of test implementation.
• It offers a way to evaluate the completeness of your unit tests quantitatively.

You can use code coverage analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of test cases, but you cannot use it to validate the software product. Also, code coverage analysis does not prove if a written code is correct.

You can also read about code coverage vs test coverage for better insights.