Specifying profiling criteria

Profiling an application requires the selection of one or more analysis type under the Java Profiling data collector. Data collectors specify how data should get collected and analysis types indicate what type of data is to be collected. Filters ensure that only relevant details are channeled out to the views. Using filters is especially useful when speed and efficiency is critical: the less data there is, the less impact it has on the system, and the faster it can be collected.

Prerequisites:

Launching or attaching to an application

Configuring the profiling criteria for an application is broken down into the following sections:

Selecting the relevant data collectors and analysis types
Setting profiling options
Configuring the profiling data destination

Selecting the relevant data collectors and analysis types

In your profiling configuration, select the Monitor tab.

The tree pane displays data collectors at root level and analysis types as the children of the data collector. Expand the 'Java Profiling' data collector and notice the analysis types that fall under it (for example: 'Basic Memory Analysis', 'Execution Time Analysis', and so on...).
Select the analysis types that you are interested in under the 'Java Profiling' data collector. Be cautious with the number of analysis types selected. Selecting too many unnecessary analysis types will greatly impede the performance of the application. Refer to the table below to see which profiling types should be enabled to generate the different views, and possible applications of each profiling type. Setting options will be described in the next section.

Analysis type	Options selected	Views available	Application
Memory Analysis	N/A	Memory Statistics view (Package, Class, Method), Object References view*	Memory leak analysis, Identifying memory-intensive classes
Memory Analysis	Advanced >> Instance Level information check box selected	Memory Statistics view (Package, Class, Method, Instance) Object References view*	Memory leak analysis, Studying Garbage Collection
Time Analysis	Show execution Statistics (compressed data)	Execution Statistics (Package, Class, Method) Coverage Statistics	Viewing invocations of a method
Time Analysis	Show execution Statistics (compressed data), Advanced >> Collect instance level information	Execution Statistics (Package, Class, Method, Instance) Coverage Statistics	Viewing package, class and method statistics for each instance, Viewing invocations of a method
Time Analysis	Show execution graphical details	Execution Statistics (Package, Class, Method), Coverage Statistics, Execution Flow view, UML2 Sequence diagrams views (object,class, thread)	Identifying active threads, Identifying phases of program execution
Time Analysis	Show execution graphical details, Advanced >> Collect instance level information	Execution Statistics (Package, Class, Method, Instance), Coverage Statistics, Object References view*, Execution Flow view, UML2 Sequence diagrams views (object,class, thread)	Identifying active threads, Identifying phases of program execution
Code Coverage	N/A	Coverage Statistics (Package, Class, Method)	Viewing code coverage

* Note: For the Object References view, you will need to collect object references by invoking the action Collect Object References to view the profiling data using the Object References view. You can invoke Collect Object References from the toolbar of the Profiling Monitor view or by right clicking on the agent in the Profiling Monitor view.

Setting profiling options

You can set profiling options for the Java Profiling data collector or the selected analysis types, by highlighting the entity and clicking Edit Option.

Follow the steps below to set profiling options on the Java Profiling data collector:

Highlight Java Profiling and click on Edit Option
On the Filter Set page, specify the filter set that you want applied by selecting from the Select a filter set list. You can use the Default set.
Under Contents of selected filter set, click Add to add packages that you want to collect data for. The Add Filter dialog opens. An asterisk * can be used as a wildcard in a pattern when specifying package or method names.
Note 1. When entering a pattern for the package or method name, the pattern must be specified in one of three ways:
- A pattern with no wildcards, e.g. org.eclipse.tptp.
- A pattern with a wildcard at the beginning, e.g. *.sample.myapplication.
- A pattern with a wildcard at the end, e.g. org.eclipse.*.
Note 2. Certain classes will always be visible in the profiling views regardless of the filter settings. The profiling agent will always collect data for objects or classes that are associated with the task being examined while collecting data specific to the task. For example, you specify a filter to collect data for a single class MyUserClass, and specify another filter to exclude the java.lang.* classes. When an instance of MyUserClass is loaded though, it has an associated class definition that gets loaded. This class definition has an associated class object, which is in turn of type java.lang.Class. This results in data collection for the java.lang.Class in addition to the MyUserClass class.
This behavior applies to threads as well. The java.lang.Thread class will always show up in the Profiling views because the profiling agent tracks all running threads, and therefore, collects data for objects or classes associated with those threads.

This behavior applies to threads as well. The java.lang.Thread class will always show up in the Profiling views because the profiling agent tracks all running threads, and therefore, collects data for objects or classes associated with those threads.
Specify the Package or Class, Method Name and select Include from the Rule drop-down list.
Click OK. The filter criterion is added to the contents list.
To exclude other existing packages from the filter contents list, click on Include under the Rule column for the package, and change it to Exclude.
Click Next
To limit the data collected by method invocations select the Stop profiling after specified number of method invocations check box. Specify the number of method invocations in the input box provided.
To limit the data collected by time, select the Stop profiling after specified amount of time check box. Specify the amount of time in seconds in the input box provided.
To start the profiling agent in pause mode so that data is not collected during the initialization stage of the application, clear the Automatically start monitoring when application is launched check box. This option is strongly recommended for large applications that are not required to be monitored during the initialization phase (for example launching an instance of the workbench).
Click Finish
Click Apply to save the changes.

Similarly, you can set the options of an analysis type by highlighting it and selecting Edit Option.

Configuring the profiling data destination

You can specify the project, and the monitor to use for your profiling session. You can also write the profiling data to a file.

In your profiling configuration, select the Destination tab.
Specify the Profiling Project that you want to use for your profiling session.
Specify the Monitor that you want to use.
If you want to save the profiling data to a file, select the Send profiling data to a file and specify the file name in the Profiling file input box.
Click Apply to save the changes.
Click Profile to start profiling your application.

Hint: When filtering, only the first applicable filter is applied. When you are specifying filters, ensure that you declare the most specific filter criteria first.

Related concepts
Overview of the Profiling Tool