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authorDan Gudmundsson <[email protected]>2011-12-08 14:29:58 +0100
committerDan Gudmundsson <[email protected]>2011-12-09 12:08:53 +0100
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[observer] Add basic documentation
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="latin1" ?>
+<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">
+
+<chapter>
+ <header>
+ <copyright>
+ <year>2011</year>
+ <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
+ </copyright>
+ <legalnotice>
+ The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
+ Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
+ compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
+ Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
+ retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
+
+ Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
+ basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
+ the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
+ under the License.
+
+ </legalnotice>
+
+ <title>Observer</title>
+ <prepared></prepared>
+ <docno></docno>
+ <date></date>
+ <rev></rev>
+ <file>observer_ug.xml</file>
+ </header>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Introduction</title>
+ <p>Observer, is a graphical tool for observing the characteristics of
+ erlang systems. Observer displays system information, application
+ supervisor trees, process information, ets or mnesia tables and contains
+ a frontend for erlang tracing.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>General</title>
+ <p>Normally observer should be run from a standalone node to minimize
+ the impact of the system being observed. Example:
+ </p>
+ <code>
+ > erl -sname observer -hidden -setcookie MyCookie -run observer
+ </code>
+ <p>
+ Choose which node to observe via <c>Nodes</c> menu. The <c>View/Refresh
+ Interval</c> controls how frequent the view should be updated.
+ The refresh interval is set per viewer so you can
+ have different settings for each viewer. To minimize the system
+ impact only the active viewer is updated and the other
+ views will be updated when activated.
+ </p>
+ <note>
+ <p>Only R15B nodes can be observed.</p>
+ </note>
+
+ <p> In general the mouse buttons behaves as expected, use left click
+ to select objects, right click to pop up a menu with most used
+ choices and double click to bring up information about the
+ selected object. In most viewers with several columns you can change
+ sort order by left clicking on column header.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Applications</title>
+ <p>The <c>Applications</c> view lists application information.
+ Select an application in the left list to display its supervisor
+ tree.
+ </p>
+ <p><c>Trace process</c> will add the selected process identifier
+ to <c>Trace Overview</c> view and the node the process resides on
+ will be added as well.
+ </p>
+ <p><c>Trace named process</c> will add the
+ registered name of the process. This can be useful when tracing on
+ several nodes, then processes with that name will be traced on all traced
+ nodes.
+ </p>
+ <p><c>Trace process tree</c> and <c>Trace named process
+ tree</c> will add the selected process and all processes below,
+ right of, it to the <c>Trace Overview</c> view.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Processes</title>
+ <p>The <c>Processes</c> view lists process information.
+ For each process the following information is presented:
+ </p>
+ <taglist>
+ <tag>Pid</tag>
+ <item>The process identifier.</item>
+ <tag>Reds</tag>
+ <item>This is the number of reductions that has been executed
+ on the process</item>
+ <tag>Memory</tag>
+ <item>This is the size of the process in bytes, obtained by a
+ call to <c>process_info(Pid,memory)</c>.</item>
+ <tag>MsgQ</tag>
+ <item>This is the length of the message queue for the process.</item>
+ </taglist>
+ <note>
+ <p><em>Reds</em> can be presented as accumulated values or as values since last update.</p>
+ </note>
+ <p><c>Trace Processes</c> will add the selected process identifiers to the <c>Trace Overview</c> view and the
+ node the processes reside on will be added as well.
+ <c>Trace Named Processes</c> will add the registered name of processes. This can be useful
+ when tracing is done on several nodes, then processes with that name will be traced on all traced nodes.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Table Viewer</title>
+ <p>The <c>Table Viewer</c> view lists tables. By default ets tables
+ are visible and unreadable, private ets, tables and tables created by the OTP
+ applications are not visible. Use <c>View</c> menu to view "system"
+ ets tables, unreadable ets tables or mnesia tables.
+ </p>
+ <p>Double click to view the content of the table. Select table and activate <c>View/Table Information</c>
+ menu to view table information.
+ </p>
+ <p>In the table viewer you can regexp search for objects, edit and delete objects.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Trace Overview</title>
+ <p>The <c>Trace Overview</c> view handles tracing. Tracing is done
+ by selecting which processes to be traced and how to trace
+ them. You can trace messages, function calls and events, where
+ events are process related events such as <c>spawn</c>,
+ <c>exit</c> and several others.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>When you want to trace function calls, you also need to setup
+ <c>trace patterns</c>. Trace patterns selects the function calls
+ that will be traced. The number of traced function calls can be
+ further reduced with <c>match specifications</c>. Match
+ specifications can also be used to trigger additional information
+ in the trace messages.
+ </p>
+ <note><p>Trace patterns only applies to the traced processes.</p></note>
+
+ <p>
+ Processes are added from the <c>Applications</c> or <c>Processes</c> views.
+ A special <c>new</c> identifier, meaning all processes spawned after trace start,
+ can be added with the <c>Add 'new' Process</c> button.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When adding processes, a window with trace options will pop up. The chosen options will
+ be set for the selected processes.
+ Process options can be changed by right clicking on a process.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Processes added by process identifiers will add the nodes these
+ processes resides on in the node list. Additional nodes can be added by the <c>Add
+ Nodes</c> button.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If function calls are traced, trace patterns must be added by <c>Add Trace Pattern</c> button.
+ Select a module, function(s) and a match specification.
+ If no functions are selected, all functions in the module will be traced.
+ A few basic match specifications are provided in the tool, and
+ you can provide your own match specifications. The syntax of match
+ specifications are described in the <seealso
+ marker="erts:match_spec">ERTS User's Guide</seealso>. To simplify
+ the writing of a match specification they can also be written as
+ <c>fun/1</c> see <seealso marker="stdlib:ms_transform">ms_transform manual page</seealso> for
+ further information.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>Use the <c>Start trace</c> button to start the trace.
+ By default trace output is written to a new window, tracing is stopped when the
+ window is closed, or with <c>Stop Trace</c> button.
+ Trace output can be changed via <c>Options/Output</c> menu.
+ The trace settings, including match specifications, can be saved to, or loaded from, a file.
+ </p>
+ <p>More information about tracing can be found in <seealso
+ marker="runtime_tools:dbg">dbg</seealso> and in the chapter "Match
+ specifications in Erlang" in <seealso marker="erts:match_spec">ERTS User's
+ Guide</seealso> and the
+ <seealso marker="stdlib:ms_transform">ms_transform manual page</seealso>.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+</chapter>