1. Compile the MODULEs whose performance you wish to monitor. Depending on the kind of monitoring you want to do, you may have to give special compiler subcommands.

2. Run the MODULE MAINPM.

3. Issue MAINPM commands that tell MAINPM what to monitor. Some kinds of monitoring require no MAINPM commands; i.e., they are done by default for MODULEs that were compiled with the appropriate subcommands.

4. Run your program from MAINPM, using MAINPM's EXECUTE command.

5. When your program returns to MAINPM, generate a report containing the statistics that MAINPM collected during the execution of your program.

6. Examine the report to see where your program's performance can be improved.

2.1. Compiling MODULEs to Be Monitored

The compiler subcommands shown in Table 3–2 are sticky; i.e., they apply by default to subsequent MODULEs compiled in the same compiler session. See Chapter 4 of the MAINSAIL Compiler User's Guide for more information.

Typically, when a MODULE is compiled with special subcommands, the resulting object MODULE is larger and slower than its unmonitored counterpart.

2.2. Running MAINPM, Issuing MAINPM Commands, Running Your Program from MAINPM, and Getting a Listing

1. Specify the kinds of monitoring to be performed. See Table 3–2. In the column labeled “Pre-Execution MAINPM Commands”, the entry “none” means that this kind of monitoring is done by default for an appropriately compiled MODULE (you can change the defaults to turn off this kind of monitoring, if desired).

2. For some kinds of monitoring (SPACE and TRACECHUNKS), you may want to specify which MODULEs are to be monitored (using the default lists of MODULEs to be monitored for these commands is often satisfactory, however). If you do wish to specify which MODULEs are to be monitored, use the {NO}MONITORMODULE and {NO}MONITORLIB commands. For SPACE and TRACECHUNKS, you can also specify which areas are to be monitored using {NO}MONITORAREA; however, the default (monitor all areas) is often useful.

3. Execute the program of which the MODULEs are a part. As the program executes, the MAINSAIL runtime system gathers statistics about the monitored MODULEs and writes the information to a data file. When the program finishes, control reverts to MAINPM.

4. Issue the MAINPM LIST command to process the data file and produce a text file. This text file is a listing containing the information you requested. The format of the file is supposed to be more or less self-explanatory, although this document does contain some examples with explanations.

Note that more than one kind of monitoring may be done at a time, and different kinds of monitoring may be done for different MODULEs during the same execution of a program.