<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
      type="topic"
      id="faq">

    <info>
      <link type="guide" xref="index#faq"/>
    </info>
    <title>What does heap mean?</title>

    <section id="what-does-heap-mean">
      <title>What does "In file [heap]" mean?</title>

      <p>This means that sysprof believes a function was called from somewhere in
      the program's heap (where <code>malloc</code> allocates memory) rather than
      the code section (where executable code normally lives.) There are several
      possible explanations.
      </p>
    </section>

    <section id="jit">
      <title>JIT (Just in Time) compilers</title>

      <p>Languages like Java can generate executable code while a program is
      running and store it in the heap. Sysprof is accurately reporting the
      situation in this case.</p>
    </section>

    <section id="optimizing">
      <title>Optimizing compilers</title>

      <p>C and C++ compilers can optimize away information needed to determine a
      function's caller, so it is mistaken for [heap]. You can still tell how
      often each function is called by the program, but not always from
      where.</p>

      <note>
        <p>For gcc, the flag <code>-fno-omit-frame-pointer</code> will prevent
        this optimization. The flag is not always needed, for example on x86_64
        machines it is only needed with -O3 optimization.</p>
      </note>

      <note>
        <p>To get the most detailed and accurate call tree from un-optimized
        code, use these flags: <code>-ggdb -fno-omit-frame-pointer -O0</code></p>
      </note>
    </section>
</page>