the type of a profile

The type of metadata associated with allocations. This is the type of records passed to the callback triggered by the sampling of an allocation.

A ('minor, 'major) tracker describes how memprof should track sampled blocks over their lifetime, keeping a user-defined piece of metadata for each of them: 'minor is the type of metadata to keep for minor blocks, and 'major the type of metadata for major blocks.

The member functions in a tracker are called callbacks.

If an allocation or promotion callback raises an exception or returns None, memprof stops tracking the corresponding block.

Default callbacks simply return None or ()

Start a profile with the given parameters. Raises an exception if a profile is already sampling in the current domain.

Sampling begins immediately. The parameter sampling_rate is the sampling rate in samples per word (including headers). Usually, with cheap callbacks, a rate of 1e-4 has no visible effect on performance, and 1e-3 causes the program to run a few percent slower. 0.0 <= sampling_rate <= 1.0.

The parameter callstack_size is the length of the callstack recorded at every sample. Its default is max_int.

The parameter tracker determines how to track sampled blocks over their lifetime in the minor and major heap.

Sampling and running callbacks are temporarily disabled on the current thread when calling a callback, so callbacks do not need to be re-entrant if the program is single-threaded and single-domain. However, if threads or multiple domains are used, it is possible that several callbacks will run in parallel. In this case, callback functions must be re-entrant.

Note that a callback may be postponed slightly after the actual event. The callstack passed to an allocation callback always accurately reflects the allocation, but the program state may have evolved between the allocation and the call to the callback.

If a new thread or domain is created when the current domain is sampling for a profile, the child thread or domain joins that profile (using the same sampling_rate, callstack_size, and tracker callbacks).

An allocation callback is always run by the thread which allocated the block. If the thread exits or the profile is stopped before the callback is called, the allocation callback is not called and the block is not tracked.

Each subsequent callback is generally run by the domain which allocated the block. If the domain terminates or the profile is stopped before the callback is called, the callback may be run by a different domain.

Different domains may sample for different profiles simultaneously.

Stop sampling for the current profile. Fails if no profile is sampling in the current domain. Stops sampling in all threads and domains sharing the profile.

Promotion and deallocation callbacks from a profile may run after stop is called, until discard is applied to the profile.

A profile is implicitly stopped (but not discarded) if all domains and threads sampling for it are terminated.

Discards all profiling state for a stopped profile, which prevents any more callbacks for it. Raises an exception if called on a profile which has not been stopped.