SPIDER Profiling and Coverage

The following steps should be taken in order to collect and present the profiling and source code coverage information.

1. Compile, or consult, your code with source info enabled. Source info is enabled by default when running SICStus in SPIDER. Source info can be enabled with set_prolog_flag(source_info, on) and disabled with set_prolog_flag(source_info, off).
2. Run your code with profiling enabled. It may be a good idea to turn off profiling when uninteresting code is run. A typical way to profile a goal bench(10) would be to use set_prolog_flag(profiling, on), bench(10), set_prolog_flag(profiling, off).
3. Open the Profile view, or the Code Coverage view, from the SICStus menu. You can move these views around if you want to see them both and to prevent them from obscuring the Prolog toplevel.

   You can refresh the views, using the refresh button, if you want them to present new profile/coverage information. It is also possible to export the data, and to import previously saved profiling information.

The Profile view offers ways to focus on the more interesting parts of the profile

• Scope (available from the view menu). By default, only non-SICStus code ("My Code Only") is shown.
• A determinacy filter, in the form of a slider. It will try to focus on causes of unwanted non-determinism. Moving the slider farther to the right will more aggressively filter away predicates while trying to retain the true causes of unwanted non-determinism.

  The determinacy filtering uses various, undocumented, heuristics. One way to declare that a predicate foo/1 is expected to exit non-determinately is to add a directive :- foo/1 is nondet. in the same file as foo/1.

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