Analyzing Profiler Statistics

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Feature Only in Professional and Enterprise Editions   Profiling is supported only in Visual C++ Professional and Enterprise Editions. For more information, see Visual C++ Editions.

The profiler tab-delimited file format can contain a considerable amount of information. You can process this data in a spreadsheet, database, or user-written program.

Below are some steps for analyzing profiler statistics.

1. Collect the cumulative data from the global information records.

   These lines begin with the numbers 0 through 5. Each of these lines appears only once, and always in ascending order.

2. Determine the type of database by finding the value of the Method field. This field is the second field of the first record in the tab-delimited file.

   If the value in the Method field is greater than 400, the file comes from function profiling. If it is less than 400, the file comes from line profiling. The type of information in the local information records given later is directly related to this value.

   In any one file, the local information records are always of the same type, either line information or function information.

3. Process data from the local information records.

   For example, to calculate the percentage of hits on a given function, divide the value of the Count field in the sixth record in the file by the total number of hits from the Total Hits field in the third record.

4. Send the results to a file or stdout.

   Note   Remember that there can be only one type of local information record (either line or function information) in a file.