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How to: Launch a stand-alone native application with the profiler to collect concurrency data by using the command line

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

This topic describes how to use Visual Studio Profiling Tools command-line tools to start a native stand-alone (client) application and collect process and thread concurrency data.

A profiling session has the following parts:

  • Starting the application with the profiler

  • Controlling data collection

  • Ending the profiling session

Note

To get the path to the profiling tools, see Specify the path to command line tools. On 64-bit computers, both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the tools are available. To use the profiler command-line tools, you must add the tools path to the PATH environment variable of the Command Prompt window or add it to the command itself.

Start the application with the profiler

To start a target application with the profiler, you use the VSPerfCmd.exe/start and /launch options to initialize the Profiler and start the application. You can specify /start and /launch and their respective options. You can also add the /globaloff option to pause data collection at the start of the target application. You then use /globalon to begin to collect data.

To start an application with the profiler

  1. At a command prompt, type the following command:

    VSPerfCmd /start:concurrency /output: OutputFile [Options]

    The /output:OutputFile option is required with /start. OutputFile specifies the name and location of the profiling data (.vsp) file.

    You can use any of the options in the following table with the /start:concurrency option.

    Option Description
    /wincounter : WinCounterPath Specifies a Windows performance counter to be collected during profiling.
    /automark : Interval Use with /wincounter only. Specifies the number of milliseconds between Windows performance counter collection events. The default value is 500.
    /events : Config Specifies an Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) event to be collected during profiling. ETW events are collected in a separate (.etl) file.

  2. Start the target application by typing:

    VSPerfCmd /launch : AppName [Options]

    You can use any of the options in the following table with the /launch option.

    Option Description
    /args : Arguments Specifies a string that contains the command-line arguments to be passed to the target application.
    /console Starts the target command-line application in a separate window.
    /targetclr : CLRVersion Specifies the version of the common language runtime (CLR) to profile if the application loads more than one version of the CLR.

Control data collection

While the target application is running, you can control data collection by starting and stopping the writing of data to the file with VSPerfCmd.exe options. By controlling data collection, you can collect data for a specific part of program execution, such as the starting or shutting down of the application.

To start and stop data collection

  • The pairs of options in the following table start and stop data collection. Specify each option on a separate command line. You can turn data collection on and off multiple times.

    Option Description
    /globalon /globaloff Starts (/globalon) or stops (/globaloff) data collection for all processes.
    /processon : PID /processoff : PID Starts (/processon) or stops (/processoff) data collection for the process that the process ID (PID) specifies.
    /attach :{PID|ProcName} /detach[:{PID|ProcName}] /attach starts to collect data for the process that the process ID (PID) or process name (ProcName) specifies. /detach stops data collection for the specified process or for all processes if no process is specified.

  • You can also use the VSPerfCmd.exe/mark option to insert a profiling mark into the data file. The /mark command adds an identifier, a time stamp, and an optional user-defined text string. Marks can be used to filter the data in profiler reports and data views.

End the profiling session

To end a profiling session, the profiler must not be collecting data. You can stop collecting concurrency data by closing the profiled application or by invoking the VSPerfCmd /detach option. You then invoke the VSPerfCmd /shutdown option to turn off the profiler and close the profiling data file.

To end a profiling session

  1. Detach the profiler from the target application by closing it or by typing the following command at a command prompt:

    VSPerfCmd /detach

  2. Shut down the profiler by typing the following command at a command prompt:

    VSPerfCmd /shutdown