HARDWARE-BASED EDGE PROFILING

A method comprising: counting each occurrence of a hardware event by a Performance Monitoring Counter of a hardware processor during the execution of a target program code; orderly and continuously storing in a buffer of a Taken Branch Trace (TBT) Facility of said hardware processor a predefined TBT size of last taken branches of said target program code during its execution; every time said counting equals a sampling rate, triggering sampling of said buffer, to receive a TBT comprising current said predefined TBT size of last taken branches; constructing a full branch trace for each said TBT based on said target program code; extracting a predefined Chopped Branch Trace (CBT) size of last branches from each said full branch trace, to receive a chopped branch trace for said each TBT; and incrementally storing each said chopped branch trace to generate an edge profile of said target program code.