dotnet merge removes branches-covered and branches-valid if source values are all 0

[bvande18]

Hi, I recently ran into this while setting up a new solution and my CI/CD for a new project. I have added a test project where I tested a single class that just returned a boolean to see it was working. I know that, later down the line; we will have multiple test projects to I decided to use dotnet-coverage merge to merge all the cobertura test files I got from dotnet test. (yes redundant for a single file but it should still work correctly)

Consider this Cobertura file

<coverage line-rate="0.3333" branch-rate="1" version="1.9" timestamp="1736267691" lines-covered="4" lines-valid="12" branches-covered="0" branches-valid="0">
...
</coverage>

After the dotnet-coverage merge, I would assume I get the exact same file back (with the branches-covered and branches-valid as 0), if this is my only file. However the file I got back was the following

<coverage line-rate="0.3333" branch-rate="1" version="1.9" timestamp="1736267691" lines-covered="4" lines-valid="12" >
...
</coverage>

I would assume that the dotnet-coverage merge command line would not remove these values, especially since branch-rate is still present. But I might be mistaken. This feels like a serialization issue to me though.

[nohwnd]

@fhnaseer this is code coverage related, please have a look.

[fhnaseer]

@bvande18 If the value is zero/empty, then it is not added to the merged file.

[bvande18]

@fhnaseer If it is expected behavior, we can close this issue I guess. Again I'd assume if the value is there on the unmerged files, it should be there on the merged files. But is to minor of a thing, I can work around it ;) So we can close, unless you'd want to review this and change it?