Article-TPTP-Profiling-Tool/tptpProfilingArticle.html - www.eclipse.org/articles - Git at Google


            
            <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

            
            <html>

            
            <head>

            
              <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"

            
             content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">

            
              <title>Java Application Profiling using TPTP</title>

            
              <link rel="stylesheet" href="../default_style.css">

            
            </head>

            
            <body link="#0000ff" vlink="#800080">

            
            <div align="right">&nbsp; <font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"

            
             size="2">Copyright &copy; 2006 International Business Machines Corp.</font>

            
            <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="100%">

            
              <tbody>

            
                <tr>

            
                  <td colspan="2" align="left" bgcolor="#0080c0" valign="top"><b><font

            
             face="Arial,Helvetica"><font color="#ffffff">&nbsp;Eclipse Corner

            
            Article</font></font></b></td>

            
                </tr>

            
              </tbody>

            
            </table>

            
            </div>

            
            <div align="left">

            
            <h1><img src="images/Idea.jpg" align="middle" height="86" width="120"></h1>

            
            </div>

            
            <p>&nbsp;</p>

            
            <h3>Java Application Profiling using TPTP<br>

            
            </h3>

            
            <blockquote> <b>Summary</b> <br>

            
              <br>

            
            The Eclipse Test &amp; Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) Profiling tool

            
            can be used to profile Eclipse plug-ins,

            
            local Java(TM)

            
            applications or complex applications running on multiple hosts and

            
            different platforms.

            
            The tool is tightly integrated with Eclipse, allowing profiling of

            
            applications running from within Eclipse. <br>

            
            This article demonstrates how

            
            to use the TPTP Profiling tool to profile

            
            a Java application for identifying execution related hot spots. It

            
            shows

            
            how to start the profiling session, use the various TPTP

            
            views to analyze the data, identify methods with high execution time

            
            then jump to the source code to fix the performance problem.<br>

            
              <p><b> By Valentina Popescu, IBM<br>

            
              <br>

            
              </b> <font size="-1">February 21, 2006 (updated July 11, 2006)<br>

            
              <br>

            
              </font> </p>

            
            </blockquote>

            
            <hr width="100%"><br>

            
            <h3>Profiling an Application<br>

            
            </h3>

            
            In the current environment of short development cycles for delivering a

            
            product, developers tend to focus more on the functional aspects of

            
            application execution, mostly via testing, debugging, and code fixing.

            
            However, many problems do not easily surface until the application is

            
            running in production mode, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and gets

            
            pushed to limits during some unexpected peak periods. <br>

            
            <br>

            
            The kinds of performance problems encountered in production cannot be

            
            discovered during a

            
            debugging

            
            session. Before deployed and run in production mode, it is important to

            
            use a Profiling tool to analyze application execution and identify

            
            performance problems, such as execution

            
            bottlenecks, object leaks, and system resource limitations.<br>

            
            This article provides an introduction to the TPTP

            
            Profiling

            
            tool. It demonstrates how to use the TPTP Profiling tool to profile

            
            a Java application in order to identify performance hot spots,

            
            and fix and validate performance problems.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h3>TPTP Profiling Tool</h3>

            
            The Eclipse Test &amp; Performance Tools Platform <a

            
             href="http://eclipse.org/tptp/">(TPTP)</a> Project

            
            offers a profiling tool for identifying and isolating performance

            
            problems such

            
            as performance bottlenecks, object leaks and system resource limits.

            
            The tool

            
            targets applications of all levels of complexity, from simple

            
            standalone <span

            
             style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">Java</span>

            
            applications to Eclipse plug-ins or complex enterprise

            
            applications running

            
            on multiple

            
            machines and on different platforms.

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            Being tightly integrated with the Eclipse project, the tool

            
            is also easy to use and extend. That means that users can plug in their

            
            preferred views to analyze the data, or can extend the data collection

            
            metaphor

            
            by implementing their own flavor of data collection agent.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            This article was written using the TPTP 4.2.0 based on the EMF 2.2.0

            
            and

            
            XSD 2.2.0 release builds, which require Eclipse 3.2.0. You can download

            
            these drivers from <a

            
             href="http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/downloads/downloads.php?link=link1&amp;ver=4.2.0">here</a>.

            
            For TPTP 4.2.0 installation details go to the <a

            
             href="http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/downloads/installguide/InstallGuide42.html">TPTP

            
            download

            
            page</a>.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h3>Profiling a Java application using TPTP<br>

            
            </h3>

            
            <div style="text-align: left;">The product catalog sample used in this

            
            article

            
            is a simple Java application that parses product

            
            information stored in separate xml files and prints the result to the

            
            console output. The file system location for the folder containing the

            
            product xml files is passed as a program argument when running

            
            the main class, <span style="font-style: italic;">Product.java</span>.

            
            The xml files containing the product information are provided under the

            
            section <a href="#RunningTheExample">running

            
            the example</a>.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h4>Starting the application in profiling mode</h4>

            
            After installing the sample application, the

            
            first step is to run the product catalog application in profiling mode.

            
            Profile

            
            the application by using the <span style="font-style: italic;">Profile

            
            As &gt; Java Application</span>

            
            popup-menu on the Product class as seen in the image below. <br>

            
            <br>

            
            </div>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt=""

            
             title="Profile the Product application"

            
             src="images/n_profileAction.jpg" style="width: 699px; height: 603px;"><br>

            
            <br>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><b style="">Figure

            
            1</b> Profile the <span style="font-style: italic;">Product catalog </span>Application<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" title="tip"

            
             src="images/tip.gif" style="width: 62px; height: 13px;">Another way of

            
            starting the application in profiling mode is to use the <span

            
             style="font-style: italic;">Profile</span>

            
            action available on the Java perspective's toolbar menu. Similar to

            
            the

            
            <span style="font-style: italic;">Run </span>and <span

            
             style="font-style: italic;">Debug </span>toolbar actions, the <span

            
             style="font-style: italic;">Profile </span>action will open the

            
            launch configuration dialog and from there you can select the type of

            
            application you want to profile.<br>

            
            &nbsp;

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <h4>Setting the Java program arguments</h4>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">The <span style="font-style: italic;">Profile

            
            As &gt; Java Application </span>action will open the launch

            
            configuration wizard as displayed by Figure 2.</p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">For this example, the folder

            
            containing the product xml files is passed as a program

            
            argument. As described in the Figure 2 below, set the program arguments

            
            to be <span style="font-style: italic;">x:\myPath\products</span>,

            
            where <span style="font-style: italic;">x:\myPath </span>is the path

            
            where you have unzipped the folder containing the product xml files

            
            provided at the end of this article.<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Program arguments"

            
             title="Program arguments" src="images/args.gif"

            
             style="width: 591px; height: 585px;"><br>

            
            <br>

            
            <span style="font-weight: bold;">Figure 2</span> <span

            
             style="font-style: italic;">Product catalog</span> sample - program

            
            arguments<br>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></p>

            
            <h4><br>

            
            </h4>

            
            <h4>Setting profiling filters</h4>

            
            The next step is

            
            to set the profiling options to collect method execution information.<br>

            
            To set these options, click the Monitor tab on the Launch Configuration

            
            Properties wizard and select a set of profiling options that fits with

            
            your performance investigation.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <img alt="" src="images/tip.gif" style="width: 62px; height: 13px;">A

            
            Profiling filter set is a

            
            reusable set of profiling filters.

            
            The purpose of creating profiling filter sets is to reuse them

            
            during consecutive runs of the same application or to share them

            
            between applications that require the same type of profiling

            
            information.<br>

            
            The steps below describe how to create a new filter set used to

            
            profile the Product catalog application. We will be creating a new

            
            filter set named ProductFilterSet which will be used to profile only

            
            packages that have the

            
            <span style="font-style: italic;">com.sample.product</span> prefix.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 0.5cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">1. Choose to

            
            collect execution details by

            
            selecting the Execution Time Analysis option in the Monitor tab. <br>

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img

            
             alt="Execution Time Analysis option"

            
             title="Execution Time Analysis option" src="images/execOption.gif"

            
             style="width: 542px; height: 490px;"><br>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><b style="">Figure 3</b> Execution Time

            
            Analysis option<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">As shown in Figure 3 above we have

            
            selected the Execution Time Analysis option that can be used during

            
            consecutive runs of the

            
            product catalog application. On the next run of this application, the <span

            
             style="font-style: italic;">Setting Profiling Filters</span> step can

            
            be skipped.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 0.5cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">2. Select Edit

            
            Options action to set the profiling execution options.</p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">2a. Select the

            
            "Collect

            
            boundary classes excluded by the filter set" option and enter 3 as the

            
            Boundary class depth value. </p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm;">By selecting this option, you specify that

            
            you want to collect

            
            information for methods invoked to the specified depth starting with

            
            the methods in your filter criteria.</p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm;">As an example, let's assume that we have

            
            set

            
            the filter to collect information on method MyMethod and to filter out

            
            methods

            
            M1, M2, M3, M4.</p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm;">If the following invocation stack is

            
            executed: MyMethod &gt; M1 &gt;

            
            M2 &gt; M3 &gt; M4 ( MyMethod invokes M1 which invokes M2 which invokes

            
            M3 which invokes M4 ), based on the filtering criteria selected at

            
            point 2a, the profiler will show this call stack: MyMethod &gt;

            
            M1 &gt; M2 &gt; M3 and will not display the last invocation M3 &gt; M4

            
            (since this exceeds the specified depth of 3).</p>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Profiling Execution options"

            
             title="Profiling Execution options" src="images/profOptions.gif"

            
             style="width: 454px; height: 481px;"><br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Figure 4</span>

            
            Choose to collect execution information<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <br>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 0.5cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">3. Select the

            
            classes to be profiled. <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 0.5cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

            
            In the Monitor tab, select the Java Profiling item and double click or

            
            select Edit Options action. The Filter Set wizard opens.<br>

            
            Use the Filter Set page to choose the classes you want to profile.

            
            There are a set of predefined filters available but for this sample you

            
            will create a new filter set named ProductFilterSet which filters out

            
            everything except packages prefixed by com.sample.product.<br>

            
            Follow these steps to create the filter set:<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">3a) Select the Add...

            
            action from the filter set list. In

            
            the result dialog enter ProductFilterSet as the name of the new filter

            
            then click OK</p>

            
            <p style="margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -0.5cm;">3b) Use the Add...

            
            button from the Contents of selected

            
            filter set list to create the two filters as shown in Figure 5.</p>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img

            
             alt="Select the classes to be profiled"

            
             title="Select the classes to be profiled" src="images/n_pSetP3.jpg"

            
             style="width: 627px; height: 568px;"><br>

            
            <br>

            
            <span style="font-weight: bold;">Figure 5</span> Choose classes you

            
            want to profile<br>

            
            </div>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><br>

            
            <div style="text-align: left;"><br>

            
            <h4>Run the application</h4>

            
            </div>

            
            </div>

            
            <br>

            
            Run the Product catalog application by pressing OK on the Launch

            
            Configuration

            
            wizard. Choose Yes when asked to switch to the Profiling and Logging

            
            perspective.<br>

            
            You should see the result of the program execution in the Console view,

            
            similar with what is presented in Figure 6 below. <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img

            
             alt="Product application terminated"

            
             title="Product application terminated" src="images/n_profileApp.jpg"

            
             style="width: 753px; height: 600px;"><br>

            
            <b style=""><br>

            
            Figure 6</b> Product catalog application has been executed<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" src="images/tip.gif"

            
             style="width: 62px; height: 13px;"> The TPTP profiling tool allows you

            
            to

            
            interact with your profiled application. You can pause and resume

            
            monitoring, run garbage collection on the profiled application, collect

            
            object references or terminate the application.<br>

            
            </div>

            
            </div>

            
            <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>

            
            <br>

            
            </span>

            
            <h4>Identify performance hot spots using the Execution Statistics view</h4>

            
            <br>

            
            Use the Execution Statistics view to identify performance hot spots. To

            
            open this view, select the&nbsp; process in the&nbsp; Profiling Monitor

            
            view and select Open with &gt; Execution Statistics pop-up action.<br>

            
            The Execution Statistic view shown in the Figure 7 below display the

            
            methods executed, sorted by cumulative time. The cumulative time

            
            for a method is the time spent to execute that method, including

            
            any invocations to other methods.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Execution statistics view"

            
             title="Execution statistics view" src="images/n_executionStat.jpg"

            
             style="width: 751px; height: 513px;"><br>

            
            </div>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><span

            
             style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"></span><br>

            
            <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"></span>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><b>Figure 7</b>

            
            Execution

            
            Statistics View<br>

            
            </p>

            
            As presented in Figure 4, the <b style="">Execution

            
            Statistics</b> shows the main(java.lang.String[]),

            
            readData(java.lang.String) and createParser() methods as the top three

            
            methods with the highest execution time. It is not surprising to see

            
            the main and readData methods on this list since the first one is the

            
            starting point of the application execution while the second as

            
            suggested by it's name, is reading the products data from the xml files.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            What comes as a surprise for us is the fact that createParser()

            
            method, which

            
            just creates a SAX parser instance used to parse

            
            the xml files, has such a high execution time. The execution time for

            
            this method accounts for 42.96% of

            
            the application's total execution time. The Execution Statistics have

            
            helped us to identify this method as a potential place to optimize the

            
            application's performance.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            Once we have identified this, let's drill down and see the

            
            createParser() method's execution details. <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h4>Open Method Invocation Details view on the createParser() method<br>

            
            </h4>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;">

            
            <div style="text-align: left;">We will use next the Method Invocation

            
            Details view to see what methods in the createParser() call stack are

            
            responsible for the method's slow execution time. Open the Method

            
            Invocation Details view by double-click on the createParser() method in

            
            the Execution Statistics view.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Method Invocation Details"

            
             title="Method Invocation Details" src="images/n_mInv.jpg"

            
             style="width: 844px; height: 705px;"><br>

            
            <br>

            
            <span style="font-weight: bold;">Figure 8</span> Method Invocation

            
            Details view<br>

            
            </div>

            
            </div>

            
            <br>

            
            </div>

            
            <br>

            
            Figure 8 below presents the execution information for the

            
            createParser() method. As you can see the method has been invoked once

            
            by the readData(java.lang.String) method and invokes 5 different

            
            methods. In the invoked methods table you can see that newSAXParser()

            
            and newInstance() methods are responsible for the createParser's method

            
            slow execution. These two methods were called 24 times, as the

            
            createParser() method has been executed 24 times.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h4>Define a solution for the identified performance problem<br>

            
            </h4>

            
            <br>

            
            By analyzing this data, we found that one way to improve the

            
            createParser() execution time is to improve the execution of the two

            
            SAXParserFactory methods. Since we have no control over these methods'

            
            implementation, the only way to improve our application execution is to

            
            reduce the number of calls we make to these methods.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            The solution is to create one parser instance and reuse it for parsing

            
            all xml files, instead of creating a new parser for every file. Let's

            
            open the source code and apply the fix.<br>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" title="tip"

            
             src="images/tip.gif" style="width: 62px; height: 13px;">Before making

            
            any such optimizations, make sure that they are supported by the code.

            
            For example, while the SAXParser cannot be simultaneously used by

            
            multiple threads, instances can be reused. Strictly speaking, instances

            
            should be <code>reset()</code>before they are reused. It is also a

            
            good idea to have a comprehensive set of unit tests in place before you

            
            make changes to code that could possibly introduce changes in behavior.</p>

            
            <br>

            
            <h4>Open the source code and apply the performance fix</h4>

            
            To open the source code for the createParser() method, select the

            
            method in the Method Invocation Details view then right-click and

            
            choose the Open Source action on the pop-up menu.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;">

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Source code"

            
             title="Source code" src="images/n_sourceCode.jpg"

            
             style="width: 815px; height: 693px;"><br>

            
            </div>

            
            <b><br>

            
            Figure 9</b> Source code<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">Figure 9 shows the createParser() source

            
            code. Notice that the method creates a new SAX parser instance on every

            
            call.<br>

            
            Update the source code as presented in Figure 10 below so that the code

            
            will create only one parser instance and reuse it when parsing every

            
            xml file.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Source code"

            
             title="Source code" src="images/n_sourceCodeFix.jpg"

            
             style="width: 815px; height: 693px;"><br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Figure

            
            10 </span>Source code fix<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">As presented in Figure 10, the performance

            
            fix defines a global SAXParser instance. The createParser() method

            
            initializes the parser and returns this instance every time the method

            
            is

            
            called.<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">Let's go back now and validate the fix by

            
            running the Product catalog application in profiling mode once again.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </p>

            
            <h4>Validate the performance fix<br>

            
            </h4>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">To validate the performance fix, select

            
            the Product&nbsp; class in the Java perspective and as described above,

            
            right-click and choose Profile As &gt; Java Application.</p>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;">The Profiling options wizard will not open

            
            again as the previous profiling options will be used to run the

            
            application. After the application is executed, open the Execution

            
            Statistics view and compare the execution time.<br>

            
            Figure 11 shows the execution times after the fix has been applied to

            
            the code:<br>

            
            </p>

            
            <br>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;">

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Execution Statistics view"

            
             title="Execution Statistics view" src="images/n_executionStatFix.jpg"

            
             style="width: 742px; height: 575px;"><br>

            
            </div>

            
            <br>

            
            </div>

            
            <div style="text-align: center;"><b style="">Figure 11</b> Execution

            
            Statistics view<br>

            
            </div>

            
            <p style="text-align: left;"><br>

            
            </p>

            
            As you can see in the image above, the createParser() execution time is

            
            now only 19% of the application execution, while before the performance

            
            fix has been applied to the code, the createParser() execution time was

            
            almost 43% of the application execution time.<br>

            
            Note that this improvement will prove to be even more valuable as the

            
            number of xml files to be parsed increases, so the fix will reduce the

            
            application execution time exponential as more product files are being

            
            added to the catalog.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h3>Conclusion</h3>

            
            This article has shown how the TPTP profiling tool can be used to

            
            identify and solve performance problems. There are more aspects of the

            
            TPTP tool not covered by this article. If you would like to know more

            
            about the tool's capabilities, there are a set of&nbsp; tutorial slides

            
            and User Guides available <a

            
             href="http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/documents/index.html">here</a>.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <h3><a name="RunningTheExample"></a>Running the example</h3>

            
            The file "<a href="productCatalogSample.zip">ProductCatalog_example.zip</a>"

            
            contains the complete source code for the example in this article.

            
            Extract the content of the ZIP file into the Eclipse "plugins"

            
            directory. You will also need the list of product xml files which are

            
            stored in the <a href="xmlProductFiles.zip">products.zip</a> file.

            
            Extract the

            
            content of the products.zip file to a desired location on your file

            
            system and use this path as a program argument when running the Product

            
            catalog

            
            application.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            <p><small>Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks

            
            or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United

            
            States, other countries, or both.<br>

            
            <br>

            
            </small></p>

            
            <br>

            
            <br>

            
            </body>

            
            </html>