Setting initial scope

The initial analysis scope of a SonarQube Cloud project is defined for source files (non-test files) on one side, and for the test files on the other side.

The initial analysis scope of a project must be defined for source code (also called main code) on one side and for test code on the other side.

  • Test and source code are distinguished because test files must be excluded from the source-related metrics and different analysis rules are applied to each category.

  • Additionally, test code does not counts toward your lines of code (LOC) usage in SonarQube Cloud accounts and does not count toward coverage (you don’t have to test your test code).

The initial analysis scope of a project is controlled by the following sonar properties:

  • For source code (non-test code): sonar.sources

  • For test code (test code): sonar.tests

which define that:

  • Files outside the initial scope will not be analyzed at all.

  • Files within the initial scope will be analyzed unless excluded by further adjustments.

Each project’s initial scope is defined by default. If it doesn’t suit you, you can set it explicitly.

Default initial scope

If you are analyzing code using the SonarScanner for Maven, the sonar.sources and sonar.tests parameters are automatically determined based on information in your project configuration. You do not have to explicitly set the parameters.

If you do explicitly set the parameters, for example in your pom.xml file, they will override the automatically determined values.

See Adjusting the analysis scope for more details.

Setting the initial scope explicitely

If the default initial scope is not suitable (see example below), you must set the initial scope explicitely.

Example where an explicit setting of the initial scope is necessary

We consider the following repository example where the main and test sources are clearly separated.

When you define the directories containing all source code, and define a separate directory for all of your test code, setting up the analysis scope is clear and straight-forward.

If the SonarScanner CLI is used, the corresponding code below can be used in the sonar-project.properties file to change the default initial scope (for an integrated scanner, the configuration can be done in the build’s project definition file).

# Define separate root directories for main and test sources
sonar.sources = main/
sonar.tests = test/

The parameters sonar.sources and sonar.tests are only settable by key on the CI/CD host (mainly in configuration files or on the command line), not in the SonarQube Cloud UI. For more information, see Analysis parameters.

To set sonar.sources and sonar.tests:

  • Use a comma-delimited list of directories or files.

  • The entries in the list are simple paths. Wildcard patterns are not allowed.

  • A directory in the list means that all analyzable files and directories recursively below it are included. An individual file in the list means that the file is included.

  • The paths are interpreted relative to the project base directory which is defined through the sonar.projectBaseDir property. In most cases, this is the root directory of the project. For more information about this property, see Analysis scope for more details.

The C/C++/Objective-C analyzer doesn’t currently support sonar.tests. See Analyzing test files in Customizing the analysis.

Related pages

PreviousIntroductionNextExcluding based on path-matching patterns

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