Instrumentation (computer programming)

In context of computer programming, instrumentation refers to an ability to monitor or measure the level of a product's performance, to diagnose errors and to write trace information. Programmers implement instrumentation in the form of code instructions that monitor specific components in a system (for example, instructions may output logging information to appear on screen). When an application contains instrumentation code, it can be managed using a management tool. Instrumentation is necessary to review the performance of the application. Instrumentation approaches can be of two types, source instrumentation and binary instrumentation.

Output

In programming, instrumentation means the ability of an application to incorporate:

• Code tracing - receiving informative messages about the execution of an application at run time.
• Debugging and (structured) exception handling - tracking down and fixing programming errors in an application under development.
• Performance counters - components that allow the tracking of the performance of the application.
• Computer data logging - components that allow the logging and tracking of major events in the execution of the application.

See also

• Instruction set simulator - simulation of all instructions at machine code level to provide instrumentation
• Runtime intelligence - technologies, managed services and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of application usage levels, patterns and practices
• Software performance analysis - techniques to monitor code performance, including instrumentation
• Hardware performance counter

References

• Introduction to Instrumentation and Tracing: Microsoft Developer Network

• Apple Developer Tools: Introduction to Instruments

• SystemTap provides free software (GPL) infrastructure to simplify the gathering of information about the running Linux system.