HP Caliper User's Guide

4 HP Caliper Measurement Configuration Files
Each run of HP Caliper uses a particular measurement, which you can specify in the
command line. Each measurement corresponds to a particular measurement
configuration file supplied by HP Caliper. The measurement configuration files contain
variables that control the types of measurements performed and the content of the
reports.
You can perform all the HP Caliper measurements without looking at or even knowing
about the measurement configuration files, using the default settings in the files.
HP Caliper measurement configuration files are provided with the software kit and
reside in the HP Caliper home directory in the config subdirectory. (By default, the
home directory is /opt/caliper/ on HP-UX and /opt/hp-caliper/ on Linux.)
You can use these existing measurement configuration files or modify them or even
create your own measurement configuration files.
Measurement Configuration Files Provided with HP Caliper
The measurement configuration files provided with HP Caliper and the performance
measurements they take are shown below:
• alat
The alat measurement measures and reports sampled advance load address table
(ALAT) misses. The ALAT keeps track of speculative (that is, advance) loads. An
excessive number of ALAT compares that result in a failed advance load (an ALAT
miss) can seriously degrade performance. See “alat Measurement Report
Description” (p. 222).
• branch
The branch measurement measures and reports sampled branch mispredictions.
See “branch Measurement Report Description” (p. 227).
• cgprof (HP-UX only)
The cgprof measurement measures and reports a call graph profile, produced by
instrumenting the application code. See “cgprof Report Description ” (p. 232).
• cpu (HP-UX only)
The cpu measurement measures and reports per-process metrics based on sampled
CPU events. See “Performing CPU Metrics Analysis ” (p. 197).
• cstack
The cstack measurement measures and reports a sampled call stack profile,
produced by periodically sampling the application program counter and each of
Measurement Configuration Files Provided with HP Caliper 57