I tend to use a Makefile* for running coverage reports. Here's a relevant snippet:

OPENCMD = open
BROWSER = /Applications/Safari.app
clean:
  cover -delete
test:
  prove cover.pl
cover:
  make clean
  PERL5OPT=-MDevel::Cover=+ignore,.*\.t,-ignore,prove make test 2>&1
  cover
  make report
report:
  $(OPENCMD) $(BROWSER) cover_db/coverage.html
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Customized a bit for a Mac, but the relevant parts are the PERL5OPTS ENV I'm setting, which points out how to ignore things using -ignore and +ignore - as long as you know the syntax it's expecting, the docs should clear things up. In a nutshell, I'm telling Devel::Cover to ignore my .t files, as well as the prove utility. Fascinating yes, but like you, that's not what I really care about :)

You don't necessarily need a Makefile for this, simply typing the following into an appropriate command line** will work***, too:

$ PERL5OPT=-MDevel::Cover=+ignore,.*\.t,-ignore,prove prove
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Update: changed the PERL5OPT line a bit, added a little more explanation.

* I'm not great with Makefiles, but the above works for me.

** i.e. some unixish shell, other OSes may not let you specify environment variables like that.

*** assuming your test files are in `cwd` and named *.t.

s**lil*;  $*=join'',sort split q**;  s;.*;grr; &&s+(.(.)).+$2$1+; $; =
qq-$_-;s,.*,ahc,;$,.=chop for split q,,,reverse;print for($,,$;,$*,$/)
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