Running the Profiler

Running the Profiler

The profiler program, prof, analyzes raw profiling information and produces a printed report. The program analyzes either pc sampling or basic block counting data.

prof Syntax

The syntax for prof is:

prof [options] [prog_name] [profile_filename ...]

options: One of the keywords or keyword abbreviations shown in Table 4-1. (Specify either the entire name or the initial character of the option, as indicated in the table.)
prog_name: Specifies the name of the program whose profile data is to be profiled.
profile_filename: Specifies one or more files containing the profile data gathered when the profiled program executed (defaults are explained below). If you specify more than one file, prof sums the statistics in the resulting profile listings.

prof Defaults

The prof program has these defaults:

If you do not specify -pixie, prof assumes pc-sampling data is being analyzed. If you do not specify profile_filename, the profiler looks for a mon.out file. If this file does not exist in the current directory, prof looks for profile input data files in the directory specified by the PROFDIR environment variable (see "Creating Multiple Profile Data Files" for information on PROFDIR).

You may want to use the -merge option when you have more than one profile data file. This option merges the data from several profile files into one file.
If you specify -pixie and do not specify profile_filename, then prof looks for prog_name.Counts and provides basic block count information if this file is present.
If you specify profile_filename(s), prof determines the file type based on its content: a prof- or pixie-mode file.