Aprobe Examples

Aprobe's examples are located in Aprobe\Examples folder. The folder contains 4 subfolders:

Demo - contains two demonstration examples which provide an introductory discussion and illustration of Aprobe's features. The Demo/C example is the "Demo Workspace" you're offered when you first start Aprobe. If you haven't at least tried that one, you should do that first.

Simple - contains basic examples with which one should be familiar to be comfortable with using Aprobe tool. The Simple examples build on each other and one should go through them sequentially.

Advanced - contains examples to which one can refer when solving a particular problem with Aprobe. These examples are independent of each other and have descriptive names which should give you a clue as to which one you need.

Predefined - contains examples and descriptions of some of Aprobe's built-in probes.

Target - contains sample programs that are used as targets of the probes in several examples.

You can run each of the examples from the Aprobe Workspace (also known as the "Aprobe GUI") as well as from the Aprobe command line.

Running Examples from the Aprobe Workspace

Running examples from the Aprobe Workspace is the simplest way to do it. Simply choose the item corresponding to the example you would like to run from the File->Example Workspaces menu, e.g.

File->Example Workspaces->Simple->Ex01_Subprogram_Probes

and follow the instructions in the help file that will be opened for you automatically in your default browser (which may be covered by your Aprobe window.) Click Contents... under the Help menu in the Aprobe Window for more information on the Aprobe Window.

Building the Probes

Generally the first thing you have to do in an example is to Compile or Build your probes to create the User Action Library, or UAL which is the .dll file that contains the compiled probes. This is done by choosing Build from the Build menu, or from the popup menu you get by right-clicking on the top element in the workspace tree. This will invoke the apc command, whose command-line and output are shown in the message window along the bottom of the Aprobe window.

Running with Aprobe

When the directions tell you to run the target program with Aprobe you do it by selecting Run with Aprobe from the Run menu, or by right-clicking on the top element of the workspace tree on the left, and choosing the first entry in that popup menu, e.g., Run ..\..\Target\Hello.exe with Aprobe. This will open up a Command Prompt window in which the application is run using the aprobe command. When it's completed and you've examined the output, you can close that window.

Running without Aprobe

When the directions tell you to run the target program without Aprobe, you do it by selecting Run without Aprobe from the Run menu or the right-click popup menu on the top element of the workspace tree on the left. This will open up a Command Prompt window in which the application will run. When it's completed and you've examined the output, you can close that window.

Formatting the Logged Data

Many of the examples use the Aprobe log directive to efficiently log data for later "formatting". This is done by applying the apformat command to the .apd file(s) created when running with aprobe. Most examples that require this also automatically format after you close the window in which aprobe is run, so you won't need to do this step manually, but you should try it to see how it's done.

To Format the results:

Refresh the workspace by choosing Refresh from the Workspace menu. (This will ensure that the latest .apd files are visible)
Right-click on the .apd file produced by the run, e.g., Hello-0.apd to get its popup menu.
Choose the first item in the popup menu, e.g., Format hello-0.apd

This will open a window within the Aprobe window containing the formatted results.

Editing Apc and Rebuilding

Sometimes the directions will call for editing Apc file. This can be done with the built-in editor, which can be invoked by double clicking on the Apc file from the file tree panel or from the menu. After you edit the Apc file you have to save and then rebuild it as described above in Building the Probes.

Running Examples from the Command Prompt

"Power users" of aprobe will often use the DOS command prompt to enter commands. Some of the examples, such as Advanced/Perfmon, require using the command line.

To run examples from the command line you must first obtain a DOS command line prompt window. We recommend you do this from the Aprobe's Start menu entry:

Start->Programs->Aprobe->Aprobe Command Prompt

Or from the Aprobe window by selecting Command Prompt from the Run menu.

Once you get a command line shell window you can navigate between the examples directory using DOS commands. Each example's folder should contain a Makefile that automates the running of each example.

Building the Target program and the Probes

To build the example's target program and the probes simply type:

nmake

This will produce a .dll file containing the probe patches described by the corresponding .apc file (e.g., Hello.apc is compiled into Hello.dll. It may also build the target program for your probes if it doesn't exist already.

To run the program under Aprobe with the probe patches simply type:

nmake test

This will run the target program under aprobe, applying to it the probes contained in the .dll file(s) produced in the previous step.

For those examples that use Aprobe logging facility (log statements in the Apc files) the above command will also run apformat tool on the binary APD file produced by the aprobe run.

You can also do the steps above using the apc, aprobe and apformat commands directly. This should be easy to do after you first run nmake and observe the commands it executes. You can find the detailed description of these tools by clicking the links above to Appendix A or the Aprobe User's Guide.

Let's Go!

So, if you haven't already, let's proceed to the first Simple example!.