Patent ID: 8554811

Claim:
A process utilizing a device which has a display, at least one logical processor, and a memory in communication with the logical processor and the display, the process comprising the steps of: the processor obtaining (i) profile data for a plurality of cost-incurring items capable of incurring at least one specified category of cost, each of which specified category is one of the following categories: processor usage measured in time or cycles, processor non-usage, energy consumption, power consumption, file I/O measured in time, file I/O measured in size, network I/O measured in time, network I/O measured in size, memory measured in size, execution of a specified method, execution of a specified library, and (ii) a specification of a plurality of time intervals within an execution time period of interest; the processor configuring the memory with a temporal cost incurrence fingerprint, namely, a structure which indicates for each cost-incurring item and for each time interval whether or not that item incurred a cost in the specified category within that time interval; displaying the temporal cost incurrence fingerprint on the display; and wherein the process is further characterized in at least one of the following ways: (a) the cost-incurring items include software methods, the temporal cost incurrence fingerprint includes a plurality of individual method fingerprints with each individual method fingerprint indicating interval activity for an individual method by indicating which of the time intervals that method incurred the cost within and which of the time intervals that method did not incur the cost within, and the process further comprises the step of selecting N most expensive methods each of whose cost is less than M percent of total cost and each of which has a different individual method fingerprint from the other selected most expensive methods, N and M being specific values; (b) the cost-incurring items include method frames which are software methods in a specified call chain context, the temporal cost incurrence fingerprint includes a plurality of individual method frame fingerprints with each individual method frame fingerprint indicating interval activity for an individual method frame by indicating which of the time intervals that method frame incurred the cost within and which of the time intervals that method frame did not incur the cost within, and and the process further comprises the step of selecting N most expensive method frames each of whose cost is less than M percent of total cost and each of which has a different individual method frame fingerprint from the other selected most expensive method frames, N and M being specific values.