Branch coverage please

[dimaqq]

Please allow turning on branch coverage.
IMO it should be the default too.

[ionelmc]

You can enable branch coverage via .coveragerc. Do you really need a command line argument?

[alexamici]

You may enable branch coverage in your setup.cfg file as well by adding:

[coverage:run]
branch = True

[JonasOlson]

It looks like it used to be possible to turn on branch coverage easily with --cov-branch, just like you still use options like --cov-report or --cov-fail-under. Can we have that back?

[ionelmc]

@JonasOlson yes but why? what's wrong with putting it in .coveragerc?

[astrojuanlu]

@JonasOlson yes but why? what's wrong with putting it in .coveragerc?

Nothing wrong with it, but I agree with @JonasOlson and others that this option is too common to not have it available on the command line.

[JonasOlson]

@ionelmc: The command line argument is useful for the same reason any other command line argument is. Being able to run a command should preferably not have to include first creating, or rewriting, a file describing that command. You might not even have write access, or you might be running commands with different options every time, perhaps simultaneously. A configuration file might make sense when you want to use the same complex options over and over again, but I don't think it should replace command line options.

[sashgorokhov]

Currently I have a two-line .coveragerc with

[run]
branch = True

in my several projects and this is boring. I really would like to have a command-line argument for this. I could even write a PR for this feature.