Tracealyzer Concepts and Terminology

Term	Definition
Actor	A thread.
Actor Instance	An execution of a thread. This is the set of all fragments connected by the same-colored band. It represents the time from when RtWaitForSingleObject(Ex) or RtWaitForMultipleObjects(Ex) returns until the thread voluntarily yields control of the processor, such as with Sleep or a call to a blocking API or waiting on an object. For a handler function, such as an IST or timer handler, the execution of the handler is a single thread instance. In all other cases, the following applies: An actor instance starts when a thread begins execution or when it resumes execution after the end of a previous thread instance. An actor instance ends when the thread sleeps or blocks in a call to RtWaitForSingleObject(Ex) or RtWaitForMultipleObjects(Ex).
Execution Time	The amount of CPU time used by a thread instance, excluding pre-emptions.
Response Time	The time from the start of a thread instance until it finishes. Note that Response Time is counted from the start of execution of the thread instance, not from when the thread becomes ready to execute.
Fragment	A time interval when a specific thread executes uninterrupted. Fragments are visualized as colored rectangles in the scheduling trace. A fragment belongs to a specific thread instance, which is the set of all fragments connected by the same-colored band.
Fragmentation	The number of fragments within a thread instance. If a thread instance executes in full without pre-emptions, the fragmentation of the instance is 1.
Kernel Object	A RTX64 object, such as an event, semaphore, mutex, or thread.
Kernel Service	An API call (service) provided by the RTX64 subsystem, usually performing an operation on one or more kernel objects.
Periodicity	The time between two consecutive instances of a thread, counted from the start of the previous thread execution to the start of the current thread execution.
Project	A per-user work environment, wherein Tracealyzer settings, including most view configurations and layouts, are saved.
Separation	See Periodicity.
User Event	A custom event generated by RtGenerateEvent. Custom user events carry up to 512 bytes of arbitrary data. Custom user events also carry an unsigned integer in the range 0 to 999, which can be used to distinguish different User Events and control their formatting via the User Event customization XML file. See Defining Parsing Rules for Custom Events in Tracealyzer for more information. User events are grouped into channels which can be explicitly named using the Custom Event Definitions system. Otherwise, they follow the naming format Custom 1, ... Custom 1000, Custom 1000+. The number is the custom event Kind submitted to the function call. Channels are primarily used for filtering in the RTX64 version. However, if the Custom Event Definitions system is used, they will also automatically be used in the User Event Signal Plot view.