# Installation and Set-Up

Gcov plugin depends on binutils (such as addr2line, c++filt and nm). Gcov can be used on any platform as soon as these binutils are in PATH. For example, you can use it on Windows with Cygwin.

First of all, the user has to compile the C/C++ program with profiling enabled using "-ftest-coverage -fprofile-arcs" options prior to running the tool. These two options must be passed via the project properties to both the compiler (C/C++ Build->Settings->Tool Settings->GCC C Compiler->Miscellaneous->Other flags) and the linker (C/C++ Build->Settings->Tool Settings->GCC C Linker->Miscellaneous->Linker flags). For a CDT Autotools project, there is a check-box found under the project properties (Autotools->Configure Settings->configure->Advanced->Gcov support).