PCA collects performance information on your
application and lets you view that information
to observe the runtime characteristics of your
application, such as:
o Where your application spends the most time
o What parts of your application are executed the most
o What parts of your application are compute-bound or
I/O-bound
o What areas of your application are, or are not,
executed by tests
o What the dynamic call relationships are among the
routines in your application
o Where page faults occur
o Where you use system services
With this information, PCA helps you pinpoint important
qualities of your application, such as the location
and nature of performance bottlenecks, or how effective
your test coverage is.
1 – ElaTimInfo frame
Collecting elapsed time information gives you a broad
measure of where your application is spending the most
elapsed, or wall-clock, time. Elapsed time includes
wait loops and other factors, both internal and
external to your application, that affect how long
it takes for your application to complete.
To collect elapsed time information on your
application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Process Execution query category.
o Click on the elapsed time query.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the
elapsed time data collection, you can refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
2 – ProTimInfo frame
Collecting process time information on your application
tells you where your application is spending the most
process, or CPU, time. Process time excludes external
factors such as device wait loops and system load from
the data sampling on your application. Thus you get a
good indication of where your application has compute-
bound performance bottlenecks.
To collect process time information on your
application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Process Execution query category.
o Click on the process time query.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the
process time query, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
3 – TesCovInfo frame
Collecting test coverage information on your
application can tell you how effectively and completely
your tests exercise the codepaths in your application.
Test coverage information can tell you which lines of
code were, or were not, covered.
To collect test coverage information on your
application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Coverage query category.
o Click on the query related to the coverage
information you are interested in.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the
coverage queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
4 – ExeCtsInfo frame
Collecting execution counts information tells you
what parts of your application are executed most when
you place breakpoints at specific program locations.
Execution counts information can be very useful for
giving clues to the reason why a particular routine or
algorithm is consuming a lot of time.
To collect counting information on your application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Execution Counts query category.
o Click on the query related to the exact counting
information you want.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the
execution counts query category, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
5 – IoOpsInfo frame
Collecting I/O usage information tells you where your
application is performing I/O operations, and gives
detailed information on each I/O operation it records.
Collecting I/O information can give you more detailed
information than you can get from collecting system
services information.
To collect I/O usage information on your application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the I/O Usage query category.
o Click on the specific I/O query you are interested
in getting information on.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the I/O
Usage queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
6 – SysSerInfo frame
Collecting system service usage information on your
application is useful for determining where and your
program calls each system service and what parts of
your application use system services the most. For each
system service call, PCA gathers the following data:
o The system service index
o The PCA address of the system service call
o The current process, or CPU, time
To collect system service usage information on your
application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the System Service Uages query category.
o Click on the specific system service usage query
that you are interested in collecting information
on.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the system
service usage queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
7 – AdaTskInfo frame
Collecting Ada Tasking information gives you the
following tasking information on your Ada application:
o What tasks are performing context switching
o What Ada tasking names are used
o What Ada tasking types are used
o What Ada task priorities are used
To collect Ada Tasking information on your application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Ada Tasking query category.
o Click on the query related to the specific tasking
information you are interested in collecting.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the Ada
tasking queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
8 – RouCalInfo frame
Collecting Dynamic Call information on your application
tells you:
o Your application's call tree structure
o What routines call other routines
o Which routines make the most calls
Unlike the static call stree structure provided by
SCA, the dynamic call tree produced by PCA shows the
runtime characteristics of the relationships among your
application's routines during a given test run.
To collect Dynamic Call information on your
application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Dynamic Call Information query category.
o Click on the specific query related to the
information you are interested in collecting.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the
Dynamic Call Information queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
9 – PagFltInfo frame
Collecting Page Fault information on your application
tells you where page faults are occurring and what
addresses in your application are causing page faults.
To collect Page Fault information on your application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Run your application. This causes the PCA Collector
to take control of your application. PCA diplays the
Collector main window on your screen.
o From the File pull-down menu, create a data file
into which the Collector places performance data.
o Choose the Page Faults query category.
o Click on the query related to the specific page
fault information you are interesting in collecting.
o Click on Collect in the Collector main window.
For information on displaying the results of the Page
Faults queries, refer to:
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
o The online help for the PCA Analyzer.
10 – DisPerInfo frame
To display the results of the performance data you have
collected on your application:
o Invoke the Analyzer from the main PCA startup window
o Select the query category you collected performance
information on
o Select the specific query you chose during the
collection run
The Analyzer diplays performance data in one of the
following types of charts:
o Histograms
o Tables
o Annotated source listings
o Call trees
For more information in displaying performance results,
refer to:
o The online help for the Analyzer
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
11 – LnkColInfo frame
To compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector:
1. Compile your sources with the "/DEBUG" qualifier;
This puts all the necessary symbolic information PCA
needs into the object file.
2. The following steps specifies the PCA Collector as
your program's "debugger":
i Link your program with the "/DEBUG" qualifier;
ii Define the logical name LIB$DEBUG as
PCA$COLLECTOR;
3. If PCAC$DECW$DISPLAY is defined ensure it is not set
to " ";
4. If PCAC$DECW$DISPLAY is undefined ensure
PCA$DECW$DISPLAY is not set to " ";
5. Define a valid display device:
a. Either:
i Use the "SET DISPLAY/CREATE/NODE=node-name"
command to define the display device;
b. Or:
i Define the logical name DECW$DISPLAY as a
valid display device;
6. Run your program;
7. When the Collector window appears on the screen, you
have successfully invoked the Collector.
12 – HowToColl frame
To collect performance information on your application:
o Compile and link your application with the PCA
Collector
o Issue the run command for your application. This
causes the PCA Collector window to appear on your
screen.
o In the Collector window, click on the File pull-down
menu and choose New Datafile... to create a data
file into which the Collector places performance
data.
o Click on the Query Category button to see the
Query Category menu, from which you can select the
category of performance data you are interested in
collecting.
o Click on the specific query category you are
interested in. This causes the specific queries
for that query category to be displayed in the
query pane at the bottom half of the Collector main
window.
o Click on the specific query related to the
information you are intersted in collecting.
o Click on Collect, in the middle of the Collector
main window.
o Invoke the Analyzer to see the results of your
performance data collection.
Note that you can collect information from only one
query at a time. That is, you must do a separate
collection run for each query you choose. You can
append the results of multiple collection runs to one
performance data file, allowing you to analyze all your
performance data together.
For more information on collecting and displaying
performance information, refer to:
o The online help, which is context-sensitive. This
means you can click on any object in a PCA window
and get help on it by simultaneously pressing
the Help key on your keyboard while you press and
hold MB1 on the mouse.For more information on using
online help, see the Help menu on any PCA screen.
o The hardcopy manual, Guide to DIGITAL Performance
and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Systems
13 – CCTPCAInfo frame