Other Views



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Other Views

XPVM is designed to be extensible. New views can be created and added to the Views menu. At present, there are three other views: task utilization vs. time view, call trace view, and task output view. Unlike the Network and Space-Time views, these views are closed by default. XPVM attempts to draw the views in real time; hence, the fewer open views, the faster XPVM can draw.

The Utilization view shows the number of tasks computing, in overhead, or waiting for each instant. It is a summary of the Space-Time view for each instant. Since the number of tasks in a PVM application can change dynamically, the scale on the Utilization view will change dynamically when tasks are added, but not when they exit. When the number of tasks changes, the displayed portion of the Utilization view is completely redrawn to the new scale.

The Call Trace view provides a textual record of the last PVM call made in each task. The list of tasks is the same as in the Space-Time view. As an application runs, the text changes to reflect the most recent activity in each task. This view is useful as a call level debugger to identify where a PVM program's execution hangs.

Unlike the PVM console, XPVM has no natural place for task output to be printed. Nor is there a flag in XPVM to tell tasks to redirect their standard output back to XPVM. This flag is turned on automatically in all tasks spawned by XPVM after the Task Output view is opened. This view gives the user the option to also redirect the output into a file. If the user types a file name in the ``Task Output'' box, then the output is printed in the window and into the file.

As with the trace events, a task started outside XPVM can be programmed to send standard output to XPVM for display by using the options in pvm_setopt(). XPVM expects the OutputCode to be set to 667.  



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