Dynamic Probe Class Library

Dynamic Probe Class Library Programming Guide

About this book

This book describes the Dynamic Probe Class Library (DPCL). It shows how a C++ program can call DPCL functions to dynamically insert and remove instrumentation code patches, or "probes", into a running application.

This book is designed as a companion volume to the DPCL Class Reference. In contrast to the DPCL Class Reference (which provides detailed, alphabetically-ordered, information about each DPCL function), this book describes DPCL at a higher level. While not as detailed as the reference, this book provides an overview of the tasks a program can perform using DPCL, and describes the DPCL classes and functions related to each task.

By focusing on the tasks that a program can perform, this book provides the context necessary to understand how the various classes and functions of DPCL work together to accomplish specific goals. Once you understand the tasks that your program can perform, and know which classes need to be instantiated and which functions need to be called in order to perform each task, you can refer to the DPCL Class Reference for any additional, more specific, information you require.

Who should read this book

This book is intended for C++ application developers working in an UNIX environment. You should, therefore, understand the C++ programming language and the UNIX operating system before reading this book. Furthermore, if you plan to use the DPCL to instrument parallel programs, you should understand parallel-programming concepts, and if you plan to run these programs in the Parallel Environment, you should also understand the Parallel Environment and the Parallel Operating Environment. Where necessary, this book provides some background information relating to these issues. More commonly, this book refers you to the appropriate documentation.

How This Book is Organized

This book is organized into three main parts - the first part contains a general overview of basic terms and concepts, the second part provides instructions for performing standard DPCL programming tasks, and the third part provides instructions for performing additional, more-advanced and/or less-commonly performed, DPCL programming tasks. In addition to these three main parts, this book has a forth part consisting of appendixes -- a sample DPCL application, a listing of DPCL status codes, a glossary of terms, and a detailed index.

Throughout this book, C++ code examples illustrate various features of DPCL. Please note that these examples do not perform rigorous error checking and are provided for illustration only.

Overview of Contents

This book contains the following information: