-xa

Inserts code to count how many times each basic block is executed. This option is the old style of basic block profiling for tcov. See "-xprofile=p" for information on the new style of profiling and the tcov(1) man page for more details. See also Analyzing Program Performance With Sun Workshop.

-xa invokes a runtime recording mechanism that creates a .d file for every .c file at normal termination. The .d file accumulates execution data for the corresponding source file. tcov(1) can then be run on the source file to generate statistics about the program. Since this option entails some optimization, it is incompatible with -g.

If set at compile-time, the TCOVDIR environment variable specifies the directory where the .d files are located. If this variable is not set, the .d files remain in the same directory as the .c files.

The -xprofile=tcov and the -xa options are compatible in a single executable. That is, you can link a program that contains some files which have been compiled with -xprofile=tcov, and others with -xa. You cannot compile a single file with both options.