In order to get the most from WindView and the event data you collect, you will want to familiarize yourself with how WindView displays your data. Your WindView installation includes several sample files of data that you can view immediately. Figure 5-1 shows the view graph that appears if you open installDir/host/src/windview/samples/vxColor.wvr using Open from the main File menu.

This chapter provides details of all the information available in the view graph and how to display exactly the portion of the event log you need to understand your application. You may want to review the summary of view graph features in 2.3.2 The View Graph. For a detailed description of all the WindView controls, see the online help.

The WindView tool bar and the event pop-up menu provide two ways to control the interval displayed in the view graph. (These controls are also available in the main menu bar.)

Figure 5-2 shows the WindView tool bar. You can zoom in and out to show a shorter or longer time interval using the (zoom in) and (zoom out) buttons on the tool bar. The zoom factor drop-down combo box ( ) allows you to specify how far the display zooms each time you click a button. The default is 2; shows you half the current view and shows you twice the current view. To change the zoom factor, type a number in the box or select one from the drop-down menu. To return directly to a display showing the entire log, press the button (zoom 100%). To select a specific interval, click and drag over the interval and then press .    

The other tool bar buttons allow you to control what data is displayed and to generate analog data associated with your event log. For more information, see 5.6 Filtering for Data of Interest and 5.5 Viewing Analog Information.

Figure 5-3 shows the event pop-up menu. Right click anywhere on the view graph to open it. The menu provides Zoom In and Zoom Out options, plus a Zoom menu with multiple options including 100%. You can select a specific interval by clicking and dragging, then clicking Zoom In.    

Use Refresh whenever you need to update the view graph display.

Selecting Context State brings up the Context State Information window (see Figure 5-4), which displays information about the context closest to where the cursor was located when the menu was called. Selecting Show Event brings up the Show Event dialog box for the closest event (see Figure 5-8).   

The Help command in the event pop-up menu has two sub menus. The Help>Nearest Event sub-menu item is a shortcut to the WindView online event dictionary; it displays the detailed description for the event nearest to the point in the view graph where you right-click to bring up the menu. The event dictionary is a part of the online WindView User's Reference. The Help>Legend command is a shortcut to the summary descriptions of WindView event icons and state stipples (see Figure 5-9). The Properties command displays a Log Properties dialog (see Figure 5-10).

Figure 5-5 shows the task pop-up menu. Right-click on any task name to open it. This menu allows you to specify which tasks are displayed on the view graph. You can hide tasks one-by-one You can hide tasks one-by-one, all tasks, or tasks in the current time interval which have no activity. Tasks can be exposed in a similar manner, one by one, all tasks, or only tasks which have activity in the visible time interval. Use the Expose submenu to show the ones you want to see.

In addition, selecting Information brings up the Context State Summary dialog box (see Figure 5-6). Selecting Attributes brings up the Context Attributes dialog box (see Figure 5-14). This dialog box shows a complete list of task names, task IDs, and CPU numbers, and allows you to select multiple tasks to show or hide on the display.    

Bring up the Context State Information window (see Figure 5-4) by selecting Context State in the event pop-up menu. The time and context are those closest to the point where you clicked to bring up the pop-up menu. The window also tells you the priority of the task, its state, when it entered that state, and how long it remained in that state.

Bring up the Context State Summary window (see Figure 5-6) by selecting Information from the task pop-up menu. The context name and ID are given for the context you clicked nearest to. The initial and final times specify an interval, and the main window displays a series of statistics about the context during that interval. You can change the interval over which statistics are calculated by selecting Whole Log, Selection, or Screen Width from the combo box and then clicking Recalculate. (You must select an interval by clicking and dragging before bringing up the Context State Summary window, or the Selection interval will be the same as the Screen Width.)

The main statistics displayed are the number of times the context entered each state and the maximum, minimum, average, and total time it spent in each state. Dismiss the window by clicking Close.

The status bar displays information relating to events and times pointed to by the mouse cursor on the viewgraph and is used to display information from the viewgraph.

Move the cursor around the viewgraph over different events. When it passes over an event, the status bar changes to display the name of the context in which the event occurred, the event timestamp, the event type, and the parameters of the event.

Clicking on an event selects it. Once the event is selected, a single vertical line appears on the view graph at the instant when the selected event occurred. The vertical line snaps to the nearest event. The status bar displays the timestamp for the event.

If the mouse is clicked, held, and dragged, two vertical selection lines appear on the viewgraph. The status bar display the times at the two vertical lines and the time between the lines.

There are two ways to bring up a Show Event dialog box similar to Figure 5-8:

• Double-click on an event icon.

• Right-click on an event icon, then click Show Event in the pop-up menu.

When the Show Event dialog box appears, the lower portion contains information on the event you selected. It lists all the instrumented information for the event. In addition, WindView initializes the search fields in the upper portion of the dialog box with the event type, context, and object ID (if you are using AIL logging) of the selected event. You can view adjacent events in the log by clicking the Prev and Next buttons. To limit the search to the currently displayed event type, context, or object, check the Lock box to the right of the appropriate item. The Visible Contexts Only checkbox allows you to limit search to contexts that are visible. This is especially useful when you have unimportant contexts hidden. If the Visible Contexts Only checkbox is un-checked all contexts are searched regardless of whether they are hidden. As an example, in Figure 5-8 the search is limited to events of type taskPrioritySet. Clicking the Next button displays the next taskPrioritySet event in the log.

You can also use the Show Event dialog box to search for other events. The Event and Context selection boxes have drop-down lists which include every event type and every context that occurs in the active log. Select the event type or the context name and number from the lists.

For online information on what each event icon and state stipple represents, click either the WindView Help>Legend entry in the main Help menu or Help>Event Legend from the event pop-up menu (shown in Figure 5-3). Figure 5-9 shows the Legend window, which lists the event names with their associated icons. For detailed information, click on any event or stipple within the Legend; this opens the Event Dictionary entry associated with that item.

The Event Dictionary is available in the online WindView User's Reference. To view it, use one of the following methods:

• Right-click on an event and select Help>Nearest Event from the event pop-up menu.

• Select Event Dictionary from the contents tab of the WindView Help menu.

• Click on the event name in the event legend help topic.

• Open the Tornado online help library and navigate to the WindView User's Reference.

The Event Dictionary summarizes the information available about a specific event. It indicates what might have caused the event to occur, what may result from it, and what information is logged about that event at each level of logging.

To bring up the Log Properties dialog, right-click on the view graph then click Properties in the event popup menu. Figure 5-10 shows the Log Properties dialog, which gives information about how the log was generated.The Log Properties dialog also shows information about merged logs.

Click on the button on the WindView tool bar to bring up the Analysis dialog box. See Figure 5-11.   

Select any analysis pack of interest. You can include all contexts in the analysis by clicking Select All or you can limit the analysis to one or more specific contexts by selecting them individually. When you click Perform, WindView performs a calculation on the current log file.

The Memory Usage analysis pack exports its results to the view graph. To view the calculated information, click Export to Graph. The calculated data is immediately displayed (see Figure 5-12). The secondary analog window uses the same time scale and shows the same interval as the main window.   

The CPU Usage analysis pack exports its results to Excel. To view the calculated information, click Export to Excel. Excel is started and the calculated data is immediately displayed (see Figure 5-13). You can now use the Excel functionality to analyze this data.        

When you export results from the CPU Usage analysis pack on a UNIX host, the data is saved in a comma separated variable format file, with an extension of .csv. You can import files of this format into spreadsheet programs or inspect them as plain text in an editor. The data is arranged in the same columns and rows as the Excel file shown in Figure 5-13.

To zero in on specific data, it is helpful to eliminate information that is not currently of interest from the view graph. This filtering of the displayed data does not affect what data is stored in the event log. The selections you make in the Collection Configuration dialog box determine what data is in the log, while filtering determines what logged data to display. There are four ways to filter the data that is displayed in the view graph:

• Task pop-up menu

• Context Attributes dialog box

• Hide non-executing states button

• Filter Events/States dialog box

One way to simplify the view graph is not to display the state stipples for any tasks except the executing task. Use the button to toggle the state stipple display on and off. You can also reach this function by selecting Hide Nonexecuting States in the View menu or by unchecking Nonexecuting States in the Filter Events/States dialog box (see Figure 5-15).

The Filter Events/States dialog box (see Figure 5-15) provides the most comprehensive tools to tailor the view graph display. Access it by clicking the button or by selecting Filter Events from the View menu.   

Events that will be displayed are shown in reverse video. To unselect them, click on them. By default, tick, interrupt, and network events are unselected. This is because events of these types are usually generated in high volumes. At lower zoom levels large numbers of such events can slow the drawing of the view graph and can obscure other events of interest. If you encounter such problems try zooming in to the region of interest first and then selecting the high volume events in the Filter Events/States dialog.

In addition, you can add or remove the following items by checking or unchecking them:

• UD Event IDs (the IDs of any user-defined events)

• Nonexecuting States (state stipples for all tasks except the executing one)

• Transition Lines (the lines that connect a previous context to the current context)

• Interrupt Transitions (the lines that connect a previous context to an interrupt)