METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PERIODIC TRACE SAMPLING FOR REAL-TIME GENERATION OF SEGMENTS OF CALL STACK TREES AUGMENTED WITH CALL STACK POSITION DETERMINATION

A method and system for profiling a program using periodic trace sampling is provided. During the execution of the program, sample-based profiling of the executing program is performed—for a predetermined period, a profiler performs trace processing for the program, after which the profiler pauses and does not perform trace processing for a predetermined period or only performs lightweight processing for a predetermined period. The periods controlling the profiler may be selected by a user, and the periods may be measured by temporal or non-temporal metrics. The user may also specify parameters that are used to filter events so that profiling is performed only for specified threads or methods. The profiler cycles through these periods, during which selected events are processed to generate a profile of the execution flows within the program. For each sample period, a tree data structure is generated in which nodes of the tree data structure represent the routines of the program that execute during the sample period, as may be indicated by entry and exit events caused by the execution of the routines. At the start of each sample period, execution flow information may be used to create an initial tree data structure. When the execution of the program is complete, the tree data structures from each sample period are merged into a resulting tree data structure.