Clarify the difference between lines of code and lines to cover

SonarQube Cloud
2

Hey there.

Another way of saying “Lines to Cover” is “Executable Lines” or “Lines that can be covered by unit tests”

Consider a Java example:

package org.eclipse.jdt.core.dom;

import javax.annotation.Nullable;

Surely these are Lines of Code, but they can’t be covered by unit tests

While some logic like this can (and should) be covered by Unit Tests.

if (answer == null) {
  return NO_ANNOTATIONS;
}

The latter sample falls under “lines to cover” (well, the first two lines, not the closing bracket :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:), the former does not, but they are all “lines of code”