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Coverage Tool Passed 23 Wrong Pointers by Counting Rows Instead of Checking Them

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A documentation coverage checker was reporting a table as fully covered despite never actually verifying the files its pointers referenced. The tool simply performed arithmetic on row counts, meaning broken, missing, or shifted line references still produced a passing zero-gap result. When the 23 pointers were finally resolved manually, every single one was off by one or two lines — a uniform error indicating a bug in the original pointer generator, not gradual drift. A separate related issue revealed four code readers joining two tables by row position rather than by a stable identifier, silently producing wrong pairs whenever a row was inserted. The fix added verbatim content quotes alongside each pointer so coverage could verify actual file contents, and introduced keyed joins that can explicitly surface missing rows rather than silently mismatch them.

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Coverage Tool Passed 23 Wrong Pointers by Counting Rows Instead of Checking Them · ShortSingh