In the context of

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

, instrumentation refers to the measure of a product's performance, in order to diagnose errors and to write trace information. Instrumentation can be of two types: source instrumentation and binary instrumentation.

Output

In programming, instrumentation means: * Profiling: measuring dynamic program behaviors during a training run with a representative input. This is useful for properties of a program that cannot be analyzed statically with sufficient precision, such as alias analysis. * Inserting timers into functions. * Logging major events such as crashes.

Limitations

Instrumentation is limited by execution coverage. If the program never reaches a particular point of execution, then instrumentation at that point collects no data. For instance, if a word processor application is instrumented, but the user never activates the print feature, then the instrumentation can say nothing about the routines which are used exclusively by the printing feature. Some types of instrumentation may cause a dramatic increase in execution time. This may limit the application of instrumentation to debugging contexts.

– range of techniques used to alter or augment the behavior of an operating system, of applications, or of other software components either by intercepting function calls or messages or events passed between software components * Instruction set simulator – simulation of all instructions at machine code level to provide instrumentation * Runtime intelligence – technologies, managed services and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of application usage levels, patterns, and practices * Software performance analysis – techniques to monitor code performance, including instrumentation * Hardware performance counter *

DTrace DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework originally created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time. Originally developed for Solaris, it has since been released unde ...

– A comprehensive dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time, implemented in Solaris,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

, and many other platforms and products. * ''Java Management Extensions'' (JMX) – Java technology for managing and monitoring applications, system objects, devices (such as printers), and service-oriented networks * Application Response Measurement – standardized instrumentation API for C and

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

* Dynamic recompilation – a feature of some emulators and virtual machines where the system may recompile some part of a program during execution

References

Introduction to Instrumentation and Tracing: Microsoft Developer Network

SystemTap
provides free software (GPL) infrastructure to simplify the gathering of information about the running Linux system.
cwrap
Auto wrap C and C++ functions with instrumentation. Software optimization System administration Management systems Debugging {{Comp-sci-stub

Output

Limitations

See also

References