Call path refinement profiles

Author

Hall, Robert J.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Volume

21

Issue

6

fYear

1995

fDate

6/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

481

Lastpage

496

Abstract

In order to effectively optimize complex programs built in a layered or recursive fashion (possibly from reused general components), the programmer has a critical need for performance information connected directly to the design decisions and other optimization opportunities present in the code. Call path refinement profiles are novel tools for guiding the optimization of such programs, that: (1) provide detailed performance information about arbitrarily nested (direct or indirect) function call sequences, and (2) focus the user´s attention on performance bottlenecks by limiting and aggregating the information presented. This paper discusses the motivation for such profiles, describes in detail their implementation in the CPPROF profiler, and relates them to previous profilers, showing how most widely available profilers can be expressed simply and efficiently in terms of call path refinements

Keywords

optimisation; optimising compilers; program diagnostics; software performance evaluation; software tools; CPPROF profiler; call path refinement profiles; complex programs; design decisions; function call sequences; optimization opportunities; performance bottlenecks; performance information; performance tuning; recursive fashion; reused general components; Cost function; Data structures; Design optimization; Finite difference methods; Inspection; Optimizing compilers; Programming profession;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.391375

Filename

391375