GPA 4.0: Cannot See Nested Tasks in Platform Analyzer

[itsik_hefez]

Hi.

I'm running VS2010 so I'm using GPA 4.0 as an alternative to Task Analyzer(TAL in GPA 3.0).

I'm trying to model the system flow of my multi-threaded application.

I'm using mainly named tasks and markers, although I'm having a problem when some tasks are nested in other larger ones.

For example, in this sequence:

BeginTask("LargeTask")

BeginTask("SubTask A");

EndTask("SubTask A");

BeginTask("SubTask B");

EndTask("SubTask B");

EndTask("LargeTask");

All I see is LargeTask in Platform Analyzer.

What is the best way to show the system flow as intended?

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

I'm not sure whether your question is how to use ITT in GPA 4.0 for instrumenting your code, or how to get GPA to show the different levels in Platform Analyzer.

So a couple of hints that may be helpful:

• GPA has some examples showing nested ITT calls when instrumenting your code. I would recommend that you look at these if your question is about how to use ITT (it's possible your calls are not "nested" as ITT/GPA expects)
• You should also look at domains and the GPA profiles, as by default we limit the amount of data GPA collects. Please list the profile options you've specified in "general" and "domains"
• Please provide some of the ITT code that you've used for your instrumentation, and I can compare this with some "best practices" that we've developed.

Hopefully this helped... After you've looked at these, I'll await follow-up questions from you.
Regards,

Neal

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

Also, in Platform Analyzer under the "View" menu there's an item labelled "show subtasks"; ensure this is checked.

Regards,

Neal

[itsik_hefez]

Checking "Show Subtasks" did the trick.

Besides that, my settings are:

Tracing

Enabled-True

DirectX-Standard

Buffer Size-8Mb

Capture App Startup-True

Domains

Test.Log.Main (the domain i defined) is Checked

I would still like to see some best practices to see if I'm using the API correctly.

Thanks

[Neal_Pierman]

Hello,

I'm glad that the "show subtasks" worked for you!

I'll add an item to my "to do list" to put together a KB (Knowledge Base) article on Platform Analyzer tips and tricks.

Thanks!

Neal