#77 Option to disable coverage for private parameterless ctor

[Anonymous]

Utility classes often have a private parameterless
constructor which is never called - it's only there to
prevent a public one being generated.

It would be helpful if private parameterless
constructors with no code could be excluded from coverage.

[Tom Parker]

Logged In: YES
user_id=1037926

This really isn't that hard to get around.

public void testSerializableUtilitiesPrivateConstructor() {
//For emma
ReflectionUtilities.executePrivateConstructor(LineUtilities.class);
}

And have this in ReflectionUtilities (which is code in a
package you are not testing for code coverage)

public static void executePrivateConstructor(Class
targetClass) {
try {
Constructor c =
targetClass.getDeclaredConstructor(new Class[] {});
c.setAccessible(true);
c.newInstance(null);
} catch (SecurityException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
} catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
} catch (InstantiationException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
} catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
throw new ReflectionException(e);
}
}

In general, I think this would be difficult to get correct.
Consider some of the items you need to work around:

Utility classes should be required to be a final class to
have this automatically tag as safe to ignore. Also, the
class can only have static methods. In order to avoid
'falsely' tagging a typesafe enumeration, one needs to
ignore any classes where the constructor is actually used.
Otherwise, it's proper to check it and count it as covered.

public final class NotAUtilityClass {
public static final NotAUtilityClass THING = new
NotAUtilityClass ();

private NotAUtilityClass () {
//No work to do, as this is a typesafe enumeration
}
}

My 2c anyway.

[Aaron Optimizer Digulla]

Logged In: YES
user_id=606
Originator: NO

See also http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2032828&group_id=108932&atid=651900