Hot spot (computer programming): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:30, 7 January 2011

Revision as of 19:20, 14 December 2011

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A '''hot spot''' in [[computer science]] is most usually defined as a region of a [[computer program]] where a high proportion of executed instructions occur or where most time is spent during the program's execution (not necessarily the same thing since some instructions are faster than others).

If a program is stopped randomly, the [[program counter]] (the [[Pointerpointer (computingcomputer programming)|pointer]] to the next instruction to be executed) is frequently found to contain the address of an instruction within a certain range, possibly indicating code that is in need of optimization or even indicating the existence of a 'tight' [[CPU]] [[controlProgram flow#Loopsloop|loop]]. This simple technique can actually be used as a method of detecting highly used instructions although somewhat more sophisticated methods, such as [[instruction set simulator]]s or [[Performance analysis|performance analyzer]]s, achieve this more accurately and consistently.

==History of hot spot detection==