Responding to Water...
ok! I think I got that from the google definitions. It is writing trace
information.
That's only one view of it, albeit a common one with many variations.
Any code that is added to the problem solution for purposes orthogonal
to just solving the problem is instrumentation. For example, some
languages compile programs differently for use with a debugger than for
production mode. So adding a HALT a the start of the program to allow
the debugger to take control is an example of instrumentation to assist
the debugger.
That theme is even more obvious for model-level debuggers (i.e.,
debuggers for UML models). One common way of doing that is to generate
"vanilla" code and insert hooks into that code that go to the model
simulator UI. That allows the model simulator to "walk" the code while
animating the UML model rather than showing the code as in a
conventional 3GL source debugger. Those hooks inserted into the code
are commonly referred to as instrumentation of the code.
Another common use of instrumentation is for performance profilers that
insert similar hooks into the object code to trigger timers around
certain blocks of object code. (One could argue this is a variation on
tracing, but the mechanics are typically quite different.)
*************
There is nothing wrong with me that could
not be cured by a capful of Drano.
H. S. Lahman
hs*@pathfindermda.com
Pathfinder Solutions -- Put MDA to Work
http://www.pathfindermda.com
blog:
http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman
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