Abstract: A method and apparatus for identifying a minimum call tree data structure from a plurality of call tree data structures are provided. With the apparatus and method, call tree data structures are generated for two or more executions of a build of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-minimization” operation in which the two or more call trees generated during runs of the computer program are walked and only those nodes that are present in each of the tree data structures are maintained in a minimized tree data structure. In addition, the minimum values for these common nodes are maintained in the minimized tree data structure. In this way, asynchronous events are removed from the minimum tree data structure and analysis may focus on those areas of the computer program that are consistent between runs of the computer program.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for identifying a minimum call tree data structure from a plurality of call tree data structures are provided. With the apparatus and method, call tree data structures are generated for two or more executions of a build of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-minimization” operation in which the two or more call trees generated during runs of the computer program are walked and only those nodes that are present in each of the tree data structures are maintained in a minimized tree data structure. In addition, the minimum values for these common nodes are maintained in the minimized tree data structure. In this way, asynchronous events are removed from the minimum tree data structure and analysis may focus on those areas of the computer program that are consistent between runs of the computer program.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for automatically performing regression processing on trace data are provided. With the apparatus and method, call tree data structures are generated for two or more executions of two or more builds of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-minimization” operation on each set of call tree data structures for each of the builds to generate minimized call tree data structures for each build of the computer program. The minimized call tree data structures are then subtracted from one another to generate a subtracted minimized call tree data structure. From this subtracted minimized call tree data structure, the portions of the computer program that are different from build to build and which appreciably and consistently affect the difference in execution of the computer program from build to build may be identified.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing hardware assistance to prefetch data during execution of code by a process or in the data processing system. In response to loading an instruction in the code into a cache, a determination is made by a processor unit as to whether a prefetch indicator is associated with the instruction. In response to the prefetch indicator being associated with the instruction, a pointer to a data structure identified by the prefetch indicator is selectively prefetched into the cache in the processor.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for presenting coverage data for code. The coverage data containing instruction access indicators associated with the code is obtained. Particular instruction access indicators that have been set by a processor in the data processing system in response to execution of the code by the processor are identified to form set instruction access indicators. Each set instruction access indicator is associated with a portion of the code. A presentation for the coverage data is generated. The set instruction access indicators are identified in the presentation. This presentation may be, for example, a graphical presentation.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided for the dynamic instrumentation of code to minimize system perturbation during tracing of the execution of the code. With the apparatus and method, “hot spots” in the execution of the code are dynamically determined during tracing of the execution of the code. These “hot spots” are dynamically instrumented, i.e. an event hook is inserted, to cause control to be passed to a handler that determines a caller of the “hot spot” method. The method that called the “hot spot” method, or “caller” method, is identified from a call stack and is dynamically instrumented for an appropriate metric so that the next time the calling method is executed, the dynamically inserted hooks are executed. The execution of the hooks in the caller method is continued for a predetermined period, e.g., number of invocations, to get an understanding of the caller method's characteristics.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions in a processor for associating a data type with a memory location. The type is associated with a location by means of metadata that is generated and manipulated by hardware instructions that are typically generated by a compiler as it generates the other instructions that comprise the machine code version of a program. A determination is made as to whether a data value about to be stored is of the required data type for that location. The hardware indicates an error condition if the types do not match.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing hardware assistance to prefetch data during execution of code by a process or in the data processing system. In response to loading of an instruction in the code into a cache, a determination is made, by the processor unit, as to whether metadata for a prefetch is present for the instruction. In response to metadata being present for the instruction, selectively prefetching data, from within a data structure using the metadata, into the cache in a processor.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing hardware assistance to prefetch data during execution of code by a process or in the data processing system. In response to loading of an instruction in the code into a cache, a determination is made, by the processor unit, as to whether metadata for a prefetch is present for the instruction. In response to metadata being present for the instruction, selectively prefetching data, from within a data structure using the metadata, into the cache in a processor.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing hardware assistance to prefetch data during execution of code by a process or in the data processing system. In response to loading of an instruction in the code into a cache, a determination is made, by the processor unit, as to whether metadata for a prefetch is present for the instruction. In response to metadata being present for the instruction, selectively prefetching data, from within a data structure using the metadata, into the cache in a processor.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for presenting coverage data for code. The coverage data containing instruction access indicators associated with the code is obtained. Particular instruction access indicators that have been set by a processor in the data processing system in response to execution of the code by the processor are identified to form set instruction access indicators. Each set instruction access indicator is associated with a portion of the code. A presentation for the coverage data is generated. The set instruction access indicators are identified in the presentation. This presentation may be, for example, a graphical presentation.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for averaging out variations from run to run of a computer program are provided. With the apparatus and method, call trees are generated for two or more executions of a build of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-addition” operation in which the two or more call trees generated during runs of the computer program are added to one another to thereby accumulate statistics for each call in the call trees. These statistics may then be divided by the number of runs whose tree data structures are being accumulated. In this way, an average of the tree data structures is generated. In addition, any portions of the tree data structure that are due to asynchronous events are averaged out so that their relative affect in the resulting tree data structure is minimized.

Abstract: A business integration (BI) system receives business objects from a source application at an event partitioner. Event partitioner partitions received business objects into independent sets based on interdependent events, and allocates each independent group of business events to a separate event queue based a partitioning modulo reduction transformation of the independent sets to determine the correct event queue for storing a particular received business object. This transformation reduces the number of independent sets to a number of event groups equal to the number of allocated event queues. Events in different groups are delivered to an interchange server through the separate event queues so that they may be processed independently and in parallel, thus improving the overall performance of the interchange server, while guaranteeing that dependent events are processed in the correct serial order.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for identifying differences in runs of a computer program that are due to changes in the code of the computer program. With the apparatus and method, call trees are generated for two or more builds of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-subtract” operation in which the two or more call trees generated during runs of two or more different builds of a computer program are subtracted from one another to identify build to build differences in the execution of the computer program. From the resulting tree, portions of the runs of the different builds of the computer program where the resource utilization of the computer program has not changed are easily identifiable. Moreover, portions of the runs of the different builds of the computer program where there are improvements or regressions in resource utilization of the computer program may be easily identifiable.

Abstract: A chunking controller within a broker layer detects a large object, where a large object is one that the size of the allocation of the large object within a memory heap exceeds a maximum contiguous free space within the Java heap. The broker layer operates atop the Java Virtual Manager to facilitate communication and business processes between heterogeneous systems. The chunking controller describes the large object by an underlying array of the large object divided into multiple pieces of a size not exceeding the maximum contiguous free space. Then, the chunking controller enables requests through the broker layer for allocation by the Java Virtual Manager of each of the pieces of the large object within the Java heap, such that the broker layer facilitates efficient allocation of large objects in the Java heap managed by the Java Virtual Manager.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for automatically performing regression processing on trace data are provided. With the apparatus and method, call tree data structures are generated for two or more executions of two or more builds of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-minimization” operation on each set of call tree data structures for each of the builds to generate minimized call tree data structures for each build of the computer program. The minimized call tree data structures are then subtracted from one another to generate a subtracted minimized call tree data structure. From this subtracted minimized call tree data structure, the portions of the computer program that are different from build to build and which appreciably and consistently affect the difference in execution of the computer program from build to build may be identified.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for presenting coverage data for code. The coverage data containing instruction access indicators associated with the code is obtained. Particular instruction access indicators that have been set by a processor in the data processing system in response to execution of the code by the processor are identified to form set instruction access indicators. Each set instruction access indicator is associated with a portion of the code. A presentation for the coverage data is generated. The set instruction access indicators are identified in the presentation. This presentation may be, for example, a graphical presentation.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for presenting coverage data relating to data access occurring during execution of code. The coverage data containing data access indicators associated with memory locations is obtained. The data access indicators that have been set by a processor in the data processing system in response to access of the memory locations during execution of the code by the processor are identified to form set data access indicators. Each set instruction access indicator is associated with a portion of the memory locations allocated for the code. A presentation for coverage data is generated, wherein the set data access indicators are identified in the presentation.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for automatically performing regression processing on trace data are provided. With the apparatus and method, call tree data structures are generated for two or more executions of two or more builds of a computer program. The apparatus and method perform a “tree-minimization” operation on each set of call tree data structures for each of the builds to generate minimized call tree data structures for each build of the computer program. The minimized call tree data structures are then subtracted from one another to generate a subtracted minimized call tree data structure. From this subtracted minimized call tree data structure, the portions of the computer program that are different from build to build and which appreciably and consistently affect the difference in execution of the computer program from build to build may be identified.

Abstract: A method and system for determining the memory utilization of a heap are provided. With the method and system, object allocations and optionally, possible memory freeing events are used to initiate a mark-and-count operation. The mark-and-count operation marks the live objects and maintains a running count of their memory bytes allocated to the live objects, referred to as a live count. The execution of the mark-and-count operation may be dependent upon various criteria including thresholds, functions of the live count, peak live counts, number of memory bytes allocated since a previous mark-and-count operation was performed, and the like. In addition to the live count, a total number of bytes allocated to objects may be maintained in order to obtain information regarding the heap memory utilization.