From TracingWiki

TracingBook : Glossary

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[edit] List of tracing world common terms

• aggregation - updating statistics or other analytical information, based on trace events
• capture - the act of recording event information
• configuration - the set of constraints which determine which events are collected and how they are stored in a trace
• configuration interface - the API used to configure the tracing engine
• control interface - the API used to control the tracing engine
• dynamic tracepoint - a trace point dynamically added, at runtime, to the software being traced
• event - an instruction occurrence or system state transition at a specific point in time
• filters - criteria used to limit the events that are processed or captured
• post-processing - manipulation of the trace data after the trace is collected
• static tracepoint - a trace point statically compiled into the software being traced
• trace buffer - location where trace data are stored at time of capture
• trace log - location where trace data are stored for the long term
• trace time - the time during which the trace is active
  • ie. SystemTap can do aggregation at trace time, while KFT and LTTng do aggregation during post-processing (mostly)
• transfer interface - the API or mechanism used to move the trace data from kernel space to user space (or vice-versa)
• triggers - criteria used to start and stop tracing automatically

[edit] Terms to discuss

Here's a list of the term commonly used but somewhat misinterpreted. Sometime, several terms mean the same thing and should be regrouped into a single one.

• State
  • Modelled state
  • Synthetic state
  • Trace state (Declared state vs. inferred state)
• Synthetic event

[edit] Sources

• Some terms were taken from the elinux.org Tracing Collaboration Project.