Visualization

Paraver is the BSC tool for trace visualization. Trace events are encoded in Paraver format (.prv) by the Extrae tool. Paraver is a powerful tool and allows users to show many views of the trace data using different configuration files. Users can manually load, edit or create configuration files to obtain different tracing views.

The following subsections explain how to load a trace file into Paraver, open the task events view using an already predefined configuration file, and how to adjust the view to display the data properly.

For further information about Paraver, please visit the following site:

http://www.bsc.es/computer-sciences/performance-tools/paraver

Trace Loading

The final trace file in Paraver format (.prv) is at the base log folder of the application execution inside the trace folder. The fastest way to open it is calling the Paraver binary directly using the tracefile name as the argument.

$ wxparaver /path/to/trace/trace.prv

Configurations

To see the different events, counters and communications that the runtime generates, diverse configurations are available with the COMPSs installation. To open one of them, go to the “Load Configuration” option in the main window and select “File”. The configuration files are under the following path for the default installation /opt/COMPSs/Dependencies/ paraver/cfgs/. A detailed list of all the available configurations can be found in Paraver: configurations.

The following guide uses the compss_tasks.cfg as an example to illustrate the basic usage of Paraver. After accepting the load of the configuration file, another window appears showing the view. Figure 24 and Figure 25 show an example of this process.

Paraver menu

Figure 24 Paraver menu

Trace file

Figure 25 Trace file

View Adjustment

In a Paraver view, a red exclamation sign may appear in the bottom-left corner (see Figure 25 in the previous section). This means that some event values are not being shown (because they are out of the current view scope), so little adjustments must be made to view the trace correctly:

  • Fit window: modifies the view scope to fit and display all the events in the current window.
    • Right click on the trace window
    • Choose the option Fit Semantic Scale / Fit Both
Paraver view adjustment: Fit window

Figure 26 Paraver view adjustment: Fit window

  • View Event Flags: marks with a green flag all the emitted the events.
    • Right click on the trace window
    • Chose the option View / Event Flags
Paraver view adjustment: View Event Flags

Figure 27 Paraver view adjustment: View Event Flags

  • Show Info Panel: display the information panel. In the tab “Colors” we can see the legend of the colors shown in the view.
    • Right click on the trace window
    • Check the Info Panel option
    • Select the Colors tab in the panel
Paraver view adjustment: Show info panel

Figure 28 Paraver view adjustment: Show info panel

  • Zoom: explore the tracefile more in-depth by zooming into the most relevant sections.
    • Select a region in the trace window to see that region in detail
    • Repeat the previous step as many times as needed
    • The undo-zoom option is in the right click panel
Paraver view adjustment: Zoom configuration

Figure 29 Paraver view adjustment: Zoom configuration

Paraver view adjustment: Zoom configuration

Figure 30 Paraver view adjustment: Zoom configuration