heap_tracing.md

Heap Tracing

Heap Tracing allows tracing of code which allocates/frees memory. More information in Heap tracing documentation. Please also review System behaviour analysis for systemView tracing configuration.

Let's open a ESP-IDF project. For this tutorial we will use the system/sysview_tracing_heap_log example.

1. Click menu View -> Command Palette... and search for the ESP-IDF: Show Examples Projects command and choose Use Current ESP-IDF (/path/to/esp-idf). If the user doesn't see the option, please review the setup in Install tutorial.

2. A window will be open with a list a projects, go the system section and choose the sysview_tracing_heap_log. You will see a Create Project Using Example sysview_tracing_heap_log button in the top and a description of the project below. Click the button and the project will be opened in a new window.

For this example, the project has been already configured for application tracing purposes. For more information please take a look at the Application Level Tracing library documentation.

3. Configure, build and flash your project as explained in the Basic use tutorial.

4. Click the ESP-IDF Explorer in the Activity bar. On the ESP-IDF APP TRACER section, click the Start Heap Trace. This will execute the extension's openOCD server and send the corresponding tracing commands to generate a tracing log. You can see the generated tracing log in the APP TRACE ARCHIVES named with Heap Trace Log #1. Each time you execute Start Heap Trace a new tracing will be generated and shown in the archives list. You can also start tracing by running the ESP-IDF: App Trace command.

NOTE: The OpenOCD server output is shown in menu View -> Output -> OpenOCD.

NOTE: Make sure that OspenOCD configuration files are properly configured as described in Debugging tutorial.

5. Click on Heap Trace Log #1 and choose the Heap Tracing option for ESP-IDF Tracing report window. Click Show Report button to reload the visualization.

7. Click on Heap Trace Log #1 and choose the SystemView Tracing option for the ESP-IDF System View Report window.