GNU gprof

The GNU Profiler

This manual describes the GNU profiler, gprof, and how you can use it to determine which parts of a program are taking most of the execution time. We assume that you know how to write, compile, and execute programs. GNU gprof was written by Jay Fenlason.

This manual was updated August 1997 by Brent Baccala.

• 1 Introduction to Profiling
• 2 Compiling a Program for Profiling
• 3 Executing the Program
• 4 gprof Command Summary
  • 4.1 Output Options
  • 4.2 Analysis Options
  • 4.3 Miscellaneous Options
  • 4.4 Depricated Options
  • 4.5 Symspecs
• 5 Interpreting gprof's Output
  • 5.1 The Flat Profile
  • 5.2 The Call Graph
    • 5.2.1 The Primary Line
    • 5.2.2 Lines for a Function's Callers
    • 5.2.3 Lines for a Function's Subroutines
    • 5.2.4 How Mutually Recursive Functions Are Described
  • 5.3 Line-by-line Profiling
  • 5.4 The Annotated Source Listing
• 6 Inaccuracy of gprof Output
  • 6.1 Statistical Sampling Error
  • 6.2 Estimating children Times
• 7 Answers to Common Questions
• 8 Incompatibilities with Unix gprof
• 9 Details of Profiling
  • 9.1 Implementation of Profiling
  • 9.2 Profiling Data File Format
    • 9.2.1 Histogram Records
    • 9.2.2 Call-Graph Records
    • 9.2.3 Basic-Block Execution Count Records
  • 9.3 gprof's Internal Operation
    • 9.3.1 Debugging gprof

This document was generated on 2 June 2000 using the texi2html translator version 1.51a.