Is it possible to add custom GCOVR_EXCL_START / END markers via --exclude-lines-by-pattern?

[Stan7999]

I am using the gcovr --exclude-lines-by-pattern option inside a Makefile in order to have platform specific exclude markers:

gcovr --exclude-lines-by-pattern '^.*$(PLATFORM)_EXCL_LINE.*$$'

This works great and would exclude for instance lines with /* TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE */ when the make target is TESTPLATFORM.

I am wondering if this option is intended too for creating custom block excludes. For instance if I try on a regex checker the regex
.* TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_START(\n|.)*?TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_STOP.*

would match any code encapsulated by comments with TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_START and TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_STOP

I have seen the discussion on this issue
#675

And there it is mentioned "the option is intended to override Gcovr's default exclusion pattern" and "you can combine multiple patterns for this option with |"
Therefore I thought I would simply add
gcovr --exclude-lines-by-pattern '^.*$(PLATFORM)_EXCL_LINE.*$$'|$(PLATFORM)_EXCL_LINE_START(\n|.)*?$(PLATFORM)_EXCL_LINE_STOP'

or for easier testing in gcovr.cfg.
exclude-lines-by-pattern=TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_START(\n|.)*?TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_STOP|^.*TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE.*$
or alternatively only the block exclude:
exclude-lines-by-pattern=.*TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_START(\n|.)*?TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE_STOP.*

However none of these works for the block exclude. I guess I misunderstand the option and indeed you can only use it for custom single line excludes?

[Spacetown]

The --exclude-lines-by-pattern is only for lines and not for blocks. If you define --exclude-pattern-prefix=TESTPLATFORM you will activate the markers TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_LINE, TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_START and TESTPLATFORM_EXCL_STOP. In this case the default markers starting with GCOVR, LCOVR, GCOV or LCOV.

[Stan7999]

A colleague found a way to achieve what I wanted using the exclude-pattern-prefix:

--exclude-pattern-prefix '[GL]COVR?(?:_$(PLATFORM))?'

Like that you are still able to use the standard GCOV_EXCL_LINE, GCOV_EXCL_START and so on together with a platform specific exclude, i.e. GCOVR_TEST_PLATFORM_EXCL_START.

So I was simply trying with the wrong option. Great how you implemented this so configurable!