Chapter 1:  Quick Start

This section of the manual will get you using ZFtrace as quickly as possible. We highly recommend that you do read the other sections of the manual, but you should be able to start getting benefits from ZFtrace within minutes of installing it.

If you haven't already installed ZFtrace, then please follow the instructions in the installation section. Once ZFtrace is installed you can use it as follows:

1. Add the ZFtrace binary directory to your PATH environment variable

   For example, if you installed ZFtrace into /usr/local/zftr instead of the default installation directory (/usr/lpp/ZFtrace), and if you use the Korn Shell (/bin/ksh), at the shell prompt you would type

   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/zftr/bin

   Of course you probably want to add this to your $HOME/.profile so that it gets set every time you log in.

2. Execute ZFtrace

   Just insert the zftr command (and any arguments to zftr) in front of the command you would normally execute to start your application. For example:

   zftr myprogram
   
   zftr /u/me/bin/myprogram -myflag myarg1 myarg2
   
   zftr -V6 vi /etc/motd

   That's all there is to it!

The ZFtrace Detail File

ZFtrace produces a plain text file and places all tracing information in it. This file is designed to be easily loaded by any text editor. The filename chosen by ZFtrace is based on the target program's name. In the three examples above, the trace file names would be: myprogram.1.zftr (the first time it is run), myprogram.2.zftr (for the second time it is run), and vi.1.zftr. The pattern used is: targetProgramName.runNumber.zftr. ZFtrace tries to use the lowest available/unused runNumber.