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.\" $OpenBSD: intro.me,v 1.2 1996/06/26 05:34:08 deraadt Exp $
.\" $NetBSD: intro.me,v 1.2 1995/04/19 07:16:42 cgd Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1982, 1993
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\" @(#)intro.me 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/8/93
.\"
.sh 1 "Programs to be Profiled"
.pp
Software research environments
normally include many large programs
both for production use and for experimental investigation.
These programs are typically modular,
in accordance with generally accepted principles
of good program design.
Often they consist of numerous small routines
that implement various abstractions.
Sometimes such large programs are written
by one programmer
who has understood the requirements for
these abstractions, and has programmed them
appropriately.
More frequently the program has
had multiple authors and has
evolved over time, changing the demands placed
on the implementation of the abstractions without
changing the implementation itself.
Finally, the program may be assembled from a library
of abstraction implementations
unexamined by the programmer.
.pp
Once a large program is executable,
it is often desirable to increase its speed,
especially if small portions of the program
are found to dominate its execution time.
The purpose of the \fBgprof\fP profiling tool is to
help the user evaluate alternative implementations
of abstractions.
We developed this tool in response to our efforts
to improve a code generator we were writing [Graham82].
.pp
The \fBgprof\fP design takes advantage of the fact that the programs
to be measured are large, structured and hierarchical.
We provide a profile in which the execution time
for a set of routines that implement an
abstraction is collected and charged
to that abstraction.
The profile can be used to compare and assess the costs of
various implementations.
.pp
The profiler can be linked into a program without
special planning by the programmer.
The overhead for using \fBgprof\fP is low;
both in terms of added execution time and in the
volume of profiling information recorded.
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