Q: how to gprof .oct files?!

[Dennis DeCoste]

Fellow *.oct users/developers:

In short form: does anyone know how to interactively profile (e.g.
gprof) .oct code
(e.g. some sort of reset/start/stop/dump functionality, from the Octave
prompt)?!

In longer form:

Compiling,/loading/reloading *.oct dynamic files is working GREAT for me
(Octave 2.0.11,
Solaris 2.5.). Using MATWRAP, I've been quickly building nice C++ libs
that are easily
accessible from both OCTAVE (oct) and MATLAB (mex).   [If you haven't
checked out
MATWRAP (http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~holt/matwrap/) yet, you're really
missing out!]
It's really all quite nice ... (much thanks  to both John Eaton and Gary
Holt!!...)

HOWEVER, I really want to use profiling tools such as gprof to help me
find bottlenecks
in my oct code.  As you can imagine, compiling the oct files with
gprof-prep flags to CC
(e.g. -pg) does not directly work, since that seems to assume that you
are compiling
the main() as well (which is the Octave main() here), and it doesn't
dump the gprof
stats (e.g. gmon.out file) until _exit() is called.  Compiling my oct
files into new Octave
statics (e.g. recompiling Octave to include my oct code) isn't an
acceptable solution,
since I REALLY want to start, stop, and examine profiling data
interactively ...

What I want, and am guessing some has already done by now, is some
simple *.oct
wrapper code to access some START, STOP, and DUMP functionality to some
good
profiler package, such as gprof.   In lieu of that, I need pointers to
the right profiler
(or documentation) so that I can develop these functions myself.

Of course, this is essentially a general question, which applies to
profiling  MATLAB
mex files and general dynamic loading libaries (like Solaris *.so
files).  But I haven't
found anyone who's actually done such a thing in any context, and I've
checked
the obvious spots, such as the dejanews archives and gprof mans.  I'm
hoping
and thinking that, once again, the Octave community is more likely to be

pushing the envelope! ...

Thanks for any advice or pointers.   If I can figure out a workable
approach here,
I will happily develop and contribute C/OCT code for the desired
functions
(e.g. gprof_start.m, gprof_stop.m, gprof_dump.m, gprof_reset.m), as well
as
any needed patches to mkoctfile to enable oct file compilation that
supports
this (e.g. a  "-gprof" flag to mkoctfile).

Technical note:  I *have* tried to use the (Solaris specific?)
man3c/monitor
interface to profil.  My attempts to call monitor() with proper args
(e.g. PC
numbers based on _end) have failed to date.  Tips/warnings on whether
that approach is doable or  a too-complex/wrong route would also be
useful ...

Thanks!

-- Dennis

*     Dr. Dennis DeCoste,  Technical Group Leader
                                              *
*  Monitoring & Diagnosis Technology Group, Artificial Intelligence *
*  Jet Propulsion Laboratory / CalTech  address@hidden  *
*  http://www-aig.jpl.nasa.gov/home/decoste/                        *