Instrumentation (computer programming)

In the context of computer programming, instrumentation refers to an ability to monitor or measure the level of a product's performance, to diagnose errors and to write trace information. Programmers implement instrumentation in the form of code instructions that monitor specific components in a system (for example, instructions may output logging information to appear on screen). When an application contains instrumentation code, it can be managed using a management tool. Instrumentation is necessary to review the performance of the application. Instrumentation approaches can be of two types: Source instrumentation and binary instrumentation.

In programming, instrumentation means the ability of an application to incorporate:

Instrumentation is limited by execution coverage. If the program never reaches a particular point of execution, then instrumentation at that point collects no data. For instance, if a word processor application is instrumented, but the user never activates the print feature, then the instrumentation can say nothing about the routines which are used exclusively by the printing feature.

Some types of instrumentation may cause a dramatic increase in execution time. This may limit the application of instrumentation to debugging contexts.

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