Lexical profiling: theory and practice

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Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of analysing the run-time behaviour of lazy, higher-order functional programs. We examine the difference between the way that functional programmers and functional language implementors view program behaviour. Existing profiling techniques are discussed and a new technique is proposed which produces results that are straightforward for programmers to assimilate. The new technique, which we call lexical profiling, collects information about the run-time behaviour of functional programs, and reports the results with respect to the original source code rather than simply listing the actions performed at run-time. Lexical profiling complements implementation-specific profiling and is important because it provides a view of program activity which is largely independent of the underlying evaluation mechanism. Using the lexical profiler, programmers may easily relate results back to the source program. We give a full implementation of the lexical profiling technique for a sequential, interpretive graph reduction engine, and extensions for compiled and parallel graph reduction are discussed.

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