VMS Help PCA, Collector  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    The Collector gathers performance or coverage data from your
    program at run time and writes that data to a performance data
    file. To use the Collector, you must:

    1. Compile your sources with the "/DEBUG" qualifier;

       This puts all the necessary symbolic information PCA needs
       into the object file.

    2. The following steps specifies the PCA Collector as your
       program's "debugger":

        i Link your program with the "/DEBUG" qualifier;

       ii Define the logical name LIB$DEBUG as PCA$COLLECTOR;

    3. Run your program;

    4. Enter the "GO" command at the PCAC> prompt.

       The Collector will transfer control to your program just like
       the debugger does, and will store the data in a data file
       named your-image-name.PCA.

    The following example illustrates the DCL commands required to
    invoke the Collector on the FORTRAN program PRIMES.FOR:

  $ FORTRAN/DEBUG PRIMES.FOR
  $ LINK/DEBUG PRIMES.OBJ
  $ DEFINE LIB$DEBUG PCA$COLLECTOR
  $ RUN PRIMES.EXE

         Compaq Performance and Coverage Analyzer for OpenVMS Version V4.7-3

  PCAC>

    When you get the Collector prompt (PCAC>), you have successfully
    invoked the Collector and are ready to enter Collector commands.
    To collect PC-sampling data, it is sufficient to enter the GO
    command at this point. The Collector will create a performance
    data file with the default name "image-name.PCA", where image-
    name is the name of the executable image being run. This file
    will contain the collected data and all symbol information needed
    by the Analyzer.

  PCAC> GO
  %PCA-I-DEFDATFIL, set datafile required in this context,
                    creating '[]PRIMES.PCA'
  %PCA-I-BEGINCOL, data collection begins
  %PCA-I-DATADEFPC, defaulting to collecting PC sampling data
  %PCA-I-ENDCOL, data collection ends
  $

    For more information, enter HELP at the PCAC> prompt.