Profile Eclipse plugins

TPTP Profiler User

• Yunan He

Usage Scenarios

Requirements and set up

1. Install JRE 1.5 or newer;
2. Download Eclipse TPTP 4.5.0 all in one package.

Case: The intention of this case is to try to profile eclipse plugins using TPTP.

1. Profile startup of Eclipse workbench and track all allocation from "org.eclipse*" packages and store memory to a statistics file. View large memory statistics to check the memory state.
2. Profile TPTP itself in loading above memory statistics file to get execution time statistics result file of TPTP UI plugin package. Prepare data for identifying the performance bottleneck.

Problems observed during the experiences referenced above

Profiling View problem

• View problem when we choose “send profiling data to file”

Problem: when I select any kinds of analysis, it won’t display in the view if I choose “send profiling data to file”. For example, when I choose memory analysis, there’s no data in object allocations view. Instead, it reports “No data is available for display. Either you have no trace selected in the profiling monitor new or the current selection does not contain the type of data in this view can display”.It seems that it won’t display in view if we store data to a file.

Solutions for problem can be:

• Store the data to files and display in view at the same time.
• We can send messages to user to inform him that the data is collected and stored in file.

Profile problem

• Target application (Eclipse workbench) appears dead occasionally.

Problem: After profiling, the target application (Eclipse workbench) to be profiled can not display its view. It just looks like blank with title “Java – Eclipse SDK (Not Responding)”. Sometimes, it doesn’t show any target application UI window.

• Status bar displays strange information in loading large statistics file.

Problem: When we load a large statistics file, the status bar information in the bottom of the Eclipse workbench confused me. In the left, it shows “Done: xx% …”, but this percentage can exceed 100%. Also, in the right, after it shows “Import profiling file…. (100%)”, the progress bar will continue running.

Documentation problem

• How to load statistics result file

Problem: I did not find out how to import statistics file before. Especially, after generate the result file, there’s no view displayed.

Solutions for problem can be:

• Documented in Help.
• Show the view process after generating the data.

• Profile filters priority problem

Problem: Filters are arranged in order and last entry filter may be invalidated by previous filters.

Solution for problem can be:

• Document the usage of filters and the priority problem in help and give some examples.