diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'readme.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | readme.txt | 47 |
1 files changed, 47 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/readme.txt b/readme.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e1b59c --- /dev/null +++ b/readme.txt @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +ADVPROFILER +=========== + +advprofiler is a Minetest mod library to facilitate profiling of Minetest mod functions. It tries to unify and extend the functionality of existing profiling frameworks (namely https://bitbucket.org/sorcerykid/stopwatch and +https://github.com/xyzz/minetest-mods/blob/master/seasons/profiler.lua) + +What it does differently than other profilers is that it is step-oriented. It counts the times and calls measured per Minetest server step, and not continuously. + +Profilers and units +=================== + +A profiler (profiler instance) represents one large project to be monitored. It is obtained by a constructor, and has a name which is purely informational. + +A single profiler consists of several units. Units are identified only by a string key, which needs to be unique. Units can be explicitly registered to specify functions to present and/or accumulate data, if they are not explicitly registered, they're created implicitly using default presentation functions. + +Profiling variants +================== + +Each unit measures two things: 'count' and 'time'. Whether you actually use the "time" value is up to you, if you never access it, the implementation will handle this efficiently. + +There are two ways to access a unit. Both can be used interchangeably on the same unit, depending on the use case. + +Count mode +---------- + +This mode consists of a single call, which simply increases the 'count' value: +# prof:count("unit", [count_inc=1]) + +It does neither start nor stop the timetaker + +Time mode +--------- +# prof:enter("unit", [count_inc=1]) +Increments the 'count' and saves the current os.clock() as start timestamp + +# prof:leave("unit") +Stops the timetaker and adds the elapsed time to the 'time'. + +Recursing units is not supported. Calling enter() on an already entered unit results in a warning, as well as calling leave() on a not-entered unit. + +Server Steps +============ +Once per server step, advprofiler performs an intermediate evaluation step, in which it determines the per-step average values. This happens in a dedicated globalstep callback. + +During the step evaluation, none of the units should be in 'entered' state. If an unit is still not left, a warning is emitted and the time sample is discarded (the 'count' is still applied in this case!) + + |