Deprecate `includeUncoveredFiles` configuration option

[nostadt]

Hi Sebastian,

before I start, I want to give my appreciation for the time and effort you put into this project.

In the code coverage section (v11.3) of the documentation it is mentioned that it is highly recommended to keep the default (true) for includeUncoveredFiles. Otherwise the report is not complete and honest. That made me wonder, why can I disable it at all? Perhaps it can be removed, with the goal to reduce complexity.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Alexander

[sebastianbergmann]

That made me wonder, why can I disable it at all? Perhaps it can be removed, with the goal to reduce complexity.

Good question and excellent point. Thank you for raising it!

Before php-code-coverage used static analysis (using PHP-Parser) to (also) analyse uncovered files, uncovered files were actually loaded using require. This resulted in any code outside of code units such as classes or functions to be executed. This in turn could cause problems and was the reason why it was made optional whether uncovered files should be processed or not.

So, yes, the includeUncoveredFiles option could have been removed a while ago.

[nostadt]

You're welcome. Thank you for the response and happy to hear that it can be removed nowadays.

[mgleska]

There is one important reason to leave includeUncoveredFiles as it was before - daily work performance.

In my daily work I often run coverage test for only one test file. To check if my recent update of test file covers all lines and branches in tested class.
With includeUncoveredFiles=false, on coverage result index page I get only tested class and a few related files.
With includeUncoveredFiles=true, on coverage result index page I get coverage result for whole system - mostly with negative coverage score.

For very simple system it looks like this:

vs

For real (big) system second list will be much longer.
It is easy to see, that on longer list we get some (a lot of) unwanted information, which is useless in this context and disturb quick perception of coverage result of tested class.

@sebastianbergmann Please consider restoring includeUncoveredFiles in config file or adding a CLI option for to enable this functionality.