An execution profiler for window‐oriented applications

Execution profiles are important in analyzing the performance of computer programs on a given computer system. However, accurate and complete profiles are difficult to arrive at for programs that follow the client‐server model of computing, as in the popular X Window System. In X Window applications, considerable computation is invoked at the display server and this computation is an important part of the overall execution profile. The profiler presented in this paper generates meaningful profiles for X Window applications by estimating the time spent in servicing the messages in the display server. The central idea is to analyze a protocol‐level trace of the interaction between the application and the display server and thereby construct an execution profile from the trace and a set of metrics about the target display server. Experience using the profiler for examining bottlenecks is presented.