Method, apparatus and computer program product for implementing breakpoint based performance measurement

摘要

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided for implementing breakpoint based performance measurement. A set of hardware counters is defined for counting user specified hardware events. The hardware counters are programmable for counting predefined processor events and the predefined processor events include processor cycles. A start breakpoint instruction and a stop breakpoint instruction are inserted in hardware instructions. The hardware instructions are executed and processing of the hardware instructions is suspended responsive to executing the start breakpoint instruction. Responsive to executing the start breakpoint instruction, interrupt handler instructions are entered and breakpoint instructions are called. The breakpoint instructions generating a return from interrupt instruction to start the defined set of hardware counters and to return processing from the interrupt handler instructions to the hardware instructions. Then executing the hardware instructions is suspended responsive to executing the end breakpoint instruction to stop the defined set of hardware counters.