mono-api-profiler.html

Profiling Interface

Profiler Operation

The following methods can be used by dynamic profiler methods to monitor different aspects of the program.

A custom profiler will have one public method defined in the shared library which is the entry point that Mono calls at startup, it has the following signature:

	void mono_profiler_startup (const char *desc)

Where "desc" is the set of arguments that were passed from the command line. This routine will call mono_profiler_install to activate the profiler and will install one or more filters (one of the various mono_profiler_install_ functions).

In addition, a profiler developer will typically call mono_profiler_set_events to register which kinds of traces should be enabled, these can be an OR-ed combination of the following:

	MONO_PROFILE_NONE
        MONO_PROFILE_APPDOMAIN_EVENTS
        MONO_PROFILE_ASSEMBLY_EVENTS
        MONO_PROFILE_MODULE_EVENTS    
        MONO_PROFILE_CLASS_EVENTS     
        MONO_PROFILE_JIT_COMPILATION  
        MONO_PROFILE_INLINING         
        MONO_PROFILE_EXCEPTIONS       
        MONO_PROFILE_ALLOCATIONS      
        MONO_PROFILE_GC               
        MONO_PROFILE_THREADS          
        MONO_PROFILE_REMOTING         
        MONO_PROFILE_TRANSITIONS      
        MONO_PROFILE_ENTER_LEAVE      
        MONO_PROFILE_COVERAGE         
        MONO_PROFILE_INS_COVERAGE     
        MONO_PROFILE_STATISTICAL

Developers can change the set of monitored events at runtime by calling mono_profiler_set_events.

mono_profiler_install

void mono_profiler_install (MonoProfiler *prof, MonoProfileFunc callback)

Parameters

prof:
a MonoProfiler structure pointer, or a pointer to a derived structure.
callback:
the function to invoke at shutdown

Remarks

Use mono_profiler_install to activate profiling in the Mono runtime. Typically developers of new profilers will create a new structure whose first field is a MonoProfiler and put any extra information that they need to access from the various profiling callbacks there.

mono_profiler_install_allocation

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_allocation

mono_profiler_install_appdomain

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_appdomain

mono_profiler_install_assembly

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_assembly

mono_profiler_install_class

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_class

mono_profiler_install_coverage_filter

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_coverage_filter

mono_profiler_install_enter_leave

void mono_profiler_install_enter_leave (MonoProfileMethodFunc enter, MonoProfileMethodFunc fleave)

Parameters

enter:
the routine to be called on each method entry
fleave:
the routine to be called each time a method returns

Remarks

Use this routine to install routines that will be called everytime a method enters and leaves. The routines will receive as an argument the MonoMethod representing the method that is entering or leaving.

mono_profiler_install_jit_compile

void mono_profiler_install_jit_compile (MonoProfileMethodFunc start, MonoProfileMethodResult end)

Parameters

start:
the routine to be called when the JIT process starts.
end:
the routine to be called when the JIT process ends.

Remarks

Use this routine to install routines that will be called when JIT compilation of a method starts and completes.

mono_profiler_install_module

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_module

mono_profiler_install_thread

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_thread

mono_profiler_install_transition

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_transition

mono_profiler_install_gc

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_gc

mono_profiler_install_statistical

Prototype: mono_profiler_install_statistical

mono_profiler_set_events

void mono_profiler_set_events (MonoProfileFlags events)

Parameters

events:
an ORed set of values made up of MONO_PROFILER_ flags

Remarks

The events descriped in the events argument is a set of flags that represent which profiling events must be triggered. For example if you have registered a set of methods for tracking JIT compilation start and end with mono_profiler_install_jit_compile, you will want to pass the MONO_PROFILE_JIT_COMPILATION flag to this routine. You can call mono_profile_set_events more than once and you can do this at runtime to modify which methods are invoked.

mono_profiler_get_events

MonoProfileFlags mono_profiler_get_events (void)

Remarks

Returns a list of active events that will be intercepted.

Coverage

To support profiling modules that need to do code coverage analysis, the following routines is provided: