xref: /src/external/cddl/dtracetoolkit/dist/Perl/Readme

Perl - DTracing Perl

   These scripts trace the Perl programming language, and require a version
   of Perl to be built with the DTrace probes patch applied.

   The Perl DTrace provider was originally written by Alan Burlison, and
   later rewritten by Richard Dawe. These scripts were written and tested
   with Richard's patch to perl, which can be found in the comments on
   Alan's original blog entry,

	http://blogs.sun.com/alanbur/entry/dtrace_and_perl
   
   To get this and these scripts working, the rough steps are,

	1. Download and extract perl 5.8.8 (www.cpan.org)
	2. Download Richard's patch
	3. Apply Richard's patch (gpatch -p1 -i patchfile)
	4. sh Configure
	5. make perldtrace.h
	6. /usr/sbin/dtrace -h -s perldtrace.d -o perldtrace.h
	7. make

   If things go awry, you might find help by asking on the
   dtrace-discuss (a] opensolaris.org mailing list.

   Since the DTrace Perl provider may be developed further, there is a chance
   that it has changed slightly by the time you are reading this, causing
   these scripts to either break or behave oddly. Firstly, check for newer
   versions of the DTraceToolkit; if it hasn't been updated and you need
   to use these scripts immediately, then updating them shouldn't take
   too long. The following was the state of the provider when these scripts
   were written - check for changes and update the scripts accordingly,

	provider perl {
	    probe sub-entry(subroutine, file, lineno)
	    probe sub-return(subroutine, file, lineno)
	};