Method Invocation view and table

The Method Invocation view shows a representation of the entire course of a program's execution and also provides the ability to navigate through the methods that invoked the selected method. The view uses the same graphical metaphor as the Execution Flow view and the Method Invocation table contains the same information as the Execution Flow table.

The Method Invocation table can be invoked only from the Method Invocation view, which can only be invoked from the Class Statistics view, the Method Statistics view, and the Execution Flow view.

The Method Invocation table is available only if the collection of execution flow information has been enabled, which you do when launching or attaching to the application to be profiled. Select the profiling option, My application is too slow then, from the Details options, select Show Execution flow graphical details.

Display

Here is a sample of the Method Invocation view display:

Picture of the Method Invocation view

Stripes cascade to the right as one method calls another method, whose responding method in turn calls another method, and so on. Stripes are grouped in columns by thread. A thin, black vertical line separates one column from another. The name of each thread appears at the top of its column.

Stripes: The stripes indicate methods in threads. The color coding denotes the object's class.
Time: Time is measured in seconds and it's on the vertical axis, starting at the top. The height of a stripe indicates the time spent executing the method.
Names: The top black line indicates that the main, actionPerformed, called init. Lines are black unless the method is a constructor, in which case the line and labels are red.

In the Method Invocation table, the threads are grouped in the first column and time is recorded in successive rows.

Controls

Method Invocation provides you with the ability to navigate through the methods that invoked the current method. There are three additional toolbar controls available for this purpose:

Show Caller: To see the method that invoked the current method.
Show Call: To see the method being invoked by the current method.
Next method and Previous method: To browse all invocations of the selected method, or each message to the selected method. The view toolbar title dynamically changes to indicate which invocation you are viewing.

Control on the graph

The status line of the Method Invocation graph is also different than in the Execution Flow graph. Point the mouse over a stripe to display status information, for example:
Sample status line, as defined below

Method call: PerformanceExample.PerformanceExample()
Class instance: PerformanceExample.1
Time of call (instantiation time in the case of constructors): 5.452033
Cumulative time spent in the method: 4.613984