Setting initial scope

Setting the initial scope of analysis for your project's source and test files.

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 Server accounts and does not count toward coverage (you don’t have to test your test code).

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

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

  • For 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 also the Adjusting the analysis scope article on the SonarScanner for Maven page.

Setting the initial scope explicitely

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

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.

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 Server 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 parameters > Analysis scope.

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

Related pages

PreviousSetting the analysis scope of your projectNextExcluding based on path-matching patterns

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