System and method for characterizing program behavior by sampling at selected program points

• Main Authors: FINK STEPHEN J, SWEENEY PETER F, ARNOLD MATTHEW R, HIND MICHAEL J, GROVE DAVID P
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 05.09.2006
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

A system and method for characterizing runtime behavior of a computer program executing in an execution environment, the method comprising: identifying one or more instances of yield points in a program to be executed, each yield point indicating a potential sampling operation during program execution; during program execution, in response to an identified yield point instance, ascertaining a state of the execution environment for indicating whether a sampling operation is to be performed; and, when the state of the execution environment indicates a sampling operation, recording relevant information for characterizing behavior of the execution environment. Relevant information for characterizing program behavior includes frequencies of methods executed in the program, and calling context associated with methods called by the program. Different mechanisms are provided for determining the sampling condition including the setting of a trigger bit by a runtime system, or, determining a sampling operations based on a fixed percentage of all executed yield points taken.