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Hot spot (computer programming)

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process and perhaps one that should always be carried out (instead of simply accepting that a program is performing reasonably). After eliminating all extraneous processing (just by removing all the embedded comments for instance), a new runtime analysis would more accurately detect the "genuine" hot
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to retain control, so you could execute the program at fairly high speed instead of interpreting each instruction one at a time and record in a file just where a program diverged from sequentiality. By processing this file you could figure out where the program was spending most of its time. So the
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view of hot spots (from an instruction step perspective) since most instructions have different timings on many machines. It nevertheless provides a measure of highly used code and one that is quite useful in itself when tuning an algorithm.
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spots in the translation. If no hot spot detection had taken place at all, the program may well have consumed vastly more resources than necessary, possibly for many years on numerous machines, without anyone ever being fully aware of this.
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to the next instruction to be executed) is frequently found to contain the address of an instruction within a certain range, possibly indicating code that is in need of optimization or even indicating the existence of a 'tight'
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where a high proportion of executed instructions occur or where most time is spent during the program's execution (not necessarily the same thing since some instructions are faster than others).
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can be used to count each time a particular instruction is executed and later produce either an on-screen display, a printed program listing (with counts and/or percentages of total
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In the '60s, someone invented the concept of a 'jump trace'. This was a way of altering the
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The example above serves to illustrate that effective hot spot detection is often an
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first day we had this software running, we applied it to our
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described his first encounter with what he refers to as a
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Jack Woehr: An interview with Donald Knuth, April 1996.
197:of a program so it would change the next branch or 53:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. 235:Instruction set simulation as a hot spot detector 164:, achieve this more accurately and consistently. 209:supplied by, I suppose it was in those days, 8: 140:If a program is interrupted randomly, the 133:is most usually defined as a region of a 113:Learn how and when to remove this message 18:Hotspot (disambiguation) § Computing 273: 7: 62:"Hot spot" computer programming 51:adding citations to reliable sources 14: 262:Profiling (computer programming) 27: 38:needs additional citations for 1: 168:History of hot spot detection 315: 158:instruction set simulators 15: 241:instruction set simulator 211:Control Data Corporation 245:instruction path length 219: 299:Software optimization 191: 162:performance analyzers 183:in an interview for 47:improve this article 16:For other uses, see 186:Dr. Dobb's Journal 174:computer scientist 189:in 1996, saying: 123: 122: 115: 97: 306: 283: 278: 199:jump instruction 195:machine language 135:computer program 131:computer science 118: 111: 107: 104: 98: 96: 55: 31: 23: 314: 313: 309: 308: 307: 305: 304: 303: 289: 288: 287: 286: 279: 275: 270: 258: 237: 224: 170: 142:program counter 119: 108: 102: 99: 56: 54: 44: 32: 21: 12: 11: 5: 312: 310: 302: 301: 291: 290: 285: 284: 272: 271: 269: 266: 265: 264: 257: 254: 236: 233: 223: 220: 169: 166: 121: 120: 35: 33: 26: 13: 10: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 311: 300: 297: 296: 294: 282: 277: 274: 267: 263: 260: 259: 255: 253: 250: 246: 242: 234: 232: 229: 221: 218: 216: 212: 208: 205: 200: 196: 190: 188: 187: 182: 178: 175: 167: 165: 163: 159: 155: 152: 147: 143: 138: 136: 132: 128: 117: 114: 106: 95: 92: 88: 85: 81: 78: 74: 71: 67: 64: –  63: 59: 58:Find sources: 52: 48: 42: 41: 36:This article 34: 30: 25: 24: 19: 276: 248: 238: 225: 192: 184: 180: 177:Donald Knuth 171: 139: 126: 124: 109: 100: 90: 83: 76: 69: 57: 45:Please help 40:verification 37: 268:References 181:jump trace 73:newspapers 228:iterative 222:Iteration 293:Category 256:See also 249:relative 215:comments 207:compiler 127:hot spot 103:May 2009 204:Fortran 146:pointer 87:scholar 89:  82:  75:  68:  60:  144:(the 94:JSTOR 80:books 172:The 154:loop 66:news 239:An 160:or 151:CPU 129:in 49:by 295:: 125:A 116:) 110:( 105:) 101:( 91:· 84:· 77:· 70:· 43:. 20:.

Index

Hotspot (disambiguation) § Computing

verification
improve this article
adding citations to reliable sources
"Hot spot" computer programming
news
newspapers
books
scholar
JSTOR
Learn how and when to remove this message
computer science
computer program
program counter
pointer
CPU
loop
instruction set simulators
performance analyzers
computer scientist
Donald Knuth
Dr. Dobb's Journal
machine language
jump instruction
Fortran
compiler
Control Data Corporation
comments
iterative

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