\subsubsubsection Mandatory Functions
-\li <b>\c TRACE_start (const char *filename)</b>: This is the first function to
-be called. It receives a single argument as parameter that contains the name of
-the file that will hold the trace in the end of the simulation. It returns 0 if
-everything was properly initialized, 1 otherwise. All trace functions called
-before TRACE_start do nothing.
+\li <b>\c TRACE_start ()</b>: This is the first function to
+be called. It returns 0 if everything was properly initialized, 1 otherwise.
+All trace functions called before TRACE_start do nothing.
\li <b>\c TRACE_category (const char *category)</b>: This function should be used
to define a user category. The category can be used to differentiate the tasks
that will be used when these functions are called is the one returned by
the function \c MSG_host_self().
+\subsubsection faq_tracing_options Tracing configuration Options
+
+These are the options accepted by the tracing system of SimGrid:
+
+\li <b>\c tracing/filename</b>: use this to specify the name of the trace file
+that will be created during the simulation. For example, after the binary
+of your simulator, you can pass as parameter this:
+\verbatim
+--cfg=tracing/filename:mytracefile.trace
+\endverbatim
+in order to trace the behavior of the simulation in a file with the name
+mytracefile.trace.
+
+\li <b>\c tracing/platform</b>: use this to activate the tracing of the
+platform. For example, you can pass as parameter to your simulator:
+\verbatim
+--cfg=tracing/platform:1
+\endverbatim
+to trace the platform utilization by the categories you declared in your
+simulator. By default, this options is set to 0.
+
\subsubsection faq_tracing_example Example of Instrumentation
A simplified example using the tracing mandatory functions.
\verbatim
int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
- TRACE_start ("traced_simulation.trace");
+ MSG_global_init (&argc, &argv);
+
+ //note that TRACE_start must be called after MSG_global_init
+ TRACE_start ();
TRACE_category ("request");
TRACE_category ("computation");
TRACE_category ("finalize");
-
- MSG_global_init (&argc, &argv);
//(... after deployment ...)
