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The Profiler is software invented, developed, and maintained by Method R Corporation developers. With minimal training, a Profiler user can—in just minutes—identify the root cause of an Oracle-based application performance problem, propose sensible solutions to it, and predict the end-user response time impact of each proposed solution.

Within one minute of installation the Profiler exceeded all expectations. We went live with a new warehouse management system this Friday because all of the tuning was done ahead of time. The Profiler pointed out all of the application inefficiencies which we turned over to the vendor. They were able to fix the ones with the largest impact on the online response times. That gave our management the confidence they needed to make the go/no-go decision. Until I got the Profiler we were looking at postponing it until next quarter. I pity the poor souls that have to optimize in mere mortal ways.

Tony Aponte / Clearwater, Florida

5.1.24.0 (planned for 2008-08-29)

New features

• 3196: Profiler kernel now understands how to unzip .zip, .gz, .bz2, and .lzf file formats without requiring you to configure p5unzip to do it for you (in etc\config\unzip.xml).
• 3141: Upgraded core to use Perl 5.10.
• 3121: The Profiler log file now shows the Profiler version and all pertinent environment variables in effect.

Bug fixes

• 3139: Fixed installation issue with the 5.1.23.0-B.exe. The .NET 2.0 framework will now be correctly installed.
• 3201: Profiler now highlights anchor text only if it is a clickable link.
• 3200: Profiler kernel no longer emits information about environment variables when using the --noenv command line argument.
• 2901: GUI now honors the setting of the P5_MAXJAVAHEAP environment variable.

5.1.23.0 (not released)

New features

• 3131: User Guide links the concept of multi-session trace files to the --trcsess option that automatically generates Oracle trcsess commands for such files.
• 3086: Profiler no longer requires the P5_JAVA environment variable to contain a fully-qualified path name. Setting P5_JAVA=java.exe (the new default setting) now works as long as your PATH is set to find java.exe version 1.5 or above.
• 3081: Profiler now shows placeholder names only once in the placeholder table. They are listed in alphabetical order for easy reference.
• Logo, copyright and documentation changes to reflect Method R ownership.

Bug fixes

• 3127: Profiler kernel now dies gracefully when run on a non-existent or unreadable compressed file.
• 3125: Profiler now respects the SHOW-CONFIDENTIALITY-LABEL=true parameter setting in prof.xml.
• 3118: Fixed a bug wherein the Profiler kernel put the trcsess batch file in an unexpected directory if you select a cdefs file during a GUI session.
• 3105: "Number of distinct execution plans" is now counted correctly for SQL statements that have no execution plans in the input trace file.
• 3096: Profiler no longer dies and throws "Bit::Vector::_add(): illegal operand type in overloaded '+' operator at p5k.pl line %d" when a SQL statement produces two or more execution plans in the trace data, where one or more plans have statistics and one or more have no statistics.
• 3054: Profiler no longer lists placeholders listed within SELECT INTO clauses in "Placeholder Values" tables (sections 4.*.4). Previously, for example, "select c1 into :b1 from t where c2=:b2" would incorrectly show :b1 bound to :b2's value in a "Placeholder Values" table, and Profiler wouldn't show the :b2 name at all.
• 3063: In SQL statement texts, Profiler now highlights the word "null" in contexts where a placeholder variable could have been used instead.

5.1.22.0 (2008-03-31)

New features

• 2885: Improved documentation about when and how to use byte encodings other than the default UTF-8.
• 2814: Profiler now makes it easy to see substitutable literals in SQL by highlighting them in the SQL text sections (section numbers 4.*.5).
• 2725: Users can now specify a default --maxjavaheap value in the environment variable called P5_MAXJAVAHEAP.
• 2726: HTML files no longer contain irrelevant statement detail sections for trace files featuring many similar DDL statements. In our test case, HTML file size dropped from 12.9MB to 0.5MB with no loss of relevant information.

Bug fixes

• 2755: Profiler now lets the user know that the task begin and end times are unknown when there's no timestamp in the input trace stream (instead of rendering dates relative to midnight 01/01/1970 UTC).
• 2812: In statement section headers (sections 4.*), it was confusing to see re-use information saying, "1 similar but distinct text". Now, when there's only one distinct text, the information rendered says simply, "1 distinct text".
• 2761: Corrected references in User Guide to --ns_per_ms Profiler kernel option.
• 2698: Profiler now handles arbitrarily long tim values.

5.1.21.0 (2008-01-23)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 2697: Fixed a bug in which oddly-formed Oracle trace data caused the Profiler kernel to emit a element with an id="" attribute. This evidenced in the error message "FORG0001: ValidationException: Cannot convert zero-length string to an integer."
• 2716: Fixed p5prof's inability to recognize Java version "numbers" with characters other than numbers, dots, and underscores in them.

5.1.20.0 (2008-01-07)

New features

• 2631: Profiler and skew analyzer now check to ensure that the file referred to by the P5_JAVA environment variable is an executable Java version 1.5 or greater.

Bug fixes

• 2616: Fixed a bug that prevented the creation of a profile in cases where the trace file has only "WAIT" and "*** SESSION ID" lines (that is, where the trace file contains no db call lines).
  
• 2635: Fixed a bug that caused zombie DOS command shells to exist for the browser lifespan when viewing Profile reports.

5.1.19.0 (2007-12-21)

New features

• 2466: New --trcsess option generates a runnable script containing Oracle trcsess commands that correspond to Profiler log lines of the form, "p5k: ignoring trace data from session (%d.%d) on input lines %d..%d". New --script, --s_ext, and --s_rem options provide user control over the script generation.
• 2258: Now we render the time of the XML file creation, the duration of the Profiler kernel run, and the kernel's MB/sec performance into the Profiler HTML report.
• 2290: Added text to histogram sections (2.*) noting the min, max, and average latencies for the call being described.
• 641: Render the total number of database buffer cache accesses into the profile report header information.
  

Bug fixes

• 2109: Fixed "substr outside of string at p5k.pl line %d" error.
• 2118, 2119: Fixed instances where --ocinames command line option was not honored
• 2599: The license file will now be checked in both the installation directory and the etc\license\ subdirectory for compatibility with all Hotsos products.
• 2510: Upgraded Saxon processor to 9.0.0.1J.
• 2506: Fixed mouse-over hint for "stats" links that refer to statements with no Oracle hash value.
• 2586: Corrected a reference in the User Guide to the directory to which older licenses are backed up during upgrades.
• 2505: Corrected the "Support" section in the User Guide to point to our Hotsos discussion group.
• 2388: Fixed a bug that prevented the "stats" link (and the corresponding statement detail section) from rendering for some ancestors of interesting cursors.
• 2107: Matched the labels on the hotsos.com license registration form with those on the license registration dialog in the product.
• 2186: Fixed a bug that caused the kernel to interpret a STAT line group with intermixed recursive dbcalls as separate STAT line groups.
  

5.1.18.0 (2007-09-14)

New features

• 2042: New --ocinames command line option shows developer-friendly dbcall names (e.g., "prepare", "execute") instead of raw trace file names (e.g., "PARSE", "EXEC").
• 1982: New --javascript/--nojavascript command line option allows you to disable JavaScript "View characteristics" section.
• 1914: Hotsos Profiler now processes Oracle Database 11g trace files.
• 1913: Hotsos Profiler now reports on cost, size, and card row source statistics in Oracle Database 11g trace files.
• 960: New Hotsos Profiler kernel argument --ns_per_ms allows you to specify the duration, in nanoseconds, of an Oracle "microsecond."

Bug fixes

• 2097: Changed visited link color to better visually distinguish visited links from unvisited ones.
• 1939: Added reference to SHOW-NEGATIVE-ROW-SOURCE-TIMINGS parameter when suppressing negative row source timings, to better indicate to the user how to see the missing data.
• 1281: Enhanced reporting of lob processing.
• 1248: Enhanced reporting of cursor-close statistics.
• 60, 2003, 2035: Improved attribution policy for between-call network messaging assigned to cursor slot #0. 

5.1.17.0 (2007-06-29)

New features

• 1539: New Hotsos installer-managed "Hotsos Pictogram" font eliminates the need to install "Arial Unicode MS" font to see properly rendered pictograms.

Bug fixes

• 1788: Fixed the problem causing the error "SXXP0003: Error reported by XML parser: Invalid byte 2 of 3-byte UTF-8 sequence."
• 1358: Fixed skew analyzer defect which concealed obj# of calls when using --group=$obj.
• 1328: Profiler now highlights row source operations only when it is supposed to.
• 1218: Accurized text in execution plan sections with negative row source timing data.

5.1.16.0 (2007-04-03)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1159: Fixed fatal error "XTTE0570: An empty sequence is not allowed as the value of parameter $value" when Oracle kernel emits row source statistics on some STAT lines in a plan but not all of them.
• 1141: Fixed SQL formatter which truncated any string of one or more '0' characters from the tail-end of SQL statements.

5.1.15.0 (2007-03-16)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1025: Windows 2000 Launch Condition error.
• 947: oci.dll error dialog.

5.1.14.0 (2007-03-02)

New features

• 887: New Profile by SQL Statement section, which highlights SQL statements that consume significant response time but whose contributions would appear in diluted form in the Profile by Cursor section.
• 719: New SHOW-NEGATIVE-ROW-SOURCE-TIMINGS parameter.

Bug fixes

• 711: Pictogram characters now display properly in IE7.

5.1.13.0 (2006-08-25)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

Note that from this release forward, case numbers shown here are from our new Hotsos Technical Support system, and the text shown here is no longer the bug text, but the release note explaining the post-repair state of the product.

• 126: Profiler kernel honors --xsd command line option.
• 91, 149: Profiler more accurately displays placeholder (bind variable) values.
• 80, 116: Profiler now processes invalid XML characters by translating nonprinting control characters found in Oracle trace files to a visible format; for example, character 0x00 renders in Profiler output as <NUL>.
• 59: Profiler User Guide explains how it selects which placeholder values to display for a given execution plan.

5.1.12.0 (2006-07-27)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1436: Critical error in packaging that occurred in 5.1.11.0.

5.1.11.0 (2006-07-21)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1430: Profiler truncates rowid values in bind data
• 1423: Profiler 5.1.10 allocates time to unaccounted for at file conclusion
• 1330: Warning about negative time for row source operations
• 1376: Begin Prepare Stmt shows incorrect CPU Time

5.1.10.0 (2006-06-02)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1373: Profiler Output Truncated

5.1.9.0 (2006-05-26)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1296: Timing Calculation of Profiler
• 1295: Another strange-looking execution plan
• 1294: Strange-looking execution plan
• 1170: Profiler execution plan not showing the last four STAT lines.
• 1096: Plans Not Displaying Correctly

5.1.8.0 (2006-04-21)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1274: Highlight when Errors and/or Warnings Occur
• 1269: Identify Max Dump File Limit in Profiler

5.1.7.0 (2006-03-24)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1262: Profiler output should render trace file Oracle release
• 1258: The Profiler output doesn't display the detected Oracle release
• 1254: Ambiguous "Skew Data" titles for "SQL*Net message from client" and "SQL*Net message from client [think time]"
• 1224: Profiler output has cursor grove with cursors that have empty statement reference
• 1223: Profile by Cursor section "Total" row has wrong line number
• 1209: Profiler and Laredo coexistence isn't what it should be

5.1.6.0 (2006-02-24)

New features

• Each synthetic commit and rollback statement now references the Oracle hash value of the statement that it follows.

Bug fixes

• 1228: p5prof: command failed (2304)
• 1226: Trace File Does not Process
• 1222: Question regarding control of P5 with Large Trace Files
• 1218: Profiler output shows too much elapsed time
• 1211: Profiler kernel, p5k, emits too many synthetic commit or rollback statements
• 1207: P5140 GUI hangs between parsing trc file and building xml file
• 1175: Profiler - "Task identification" not being displayed (reopened)

5.1.5.0 (2006-01-20)

New features

• Attribute "unaccounted-for between dbcalls" time to application SQL instead of the synthetic catch-all "not accounted for within other statements".
• Accurately process trace files with multiple Oracle sessions represented in them.

Bug fixes

• 1208: Subtyping qualifier-label doesn't render when there's no qualifier attribute
• 1204: Incorrect Execution Plan Displayed
• 1196: Not Displaying Bind Variable Info
• 1180: Minor grammatical errors in Hotsos Profiler User Guide 5.1.4.0
• 1175: Profiler - "Task identification" not being displayed
• 1171: Profiler Misspelling of "CHARACTER" in 5.1.4.0
• 1140: Does Profiler still require .NET beta version?
• 1130: Bind variables missing from Profiler output?

5.1.4.0 (2005-12-16)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1166: P5 Profiler uninstall doesn't remove Hotsos folder from start menu
• 1164: Toggle 'Show Top n' combo box
• 1158: Profiler doesn't show placeholder values when there's no plan
• 1144: What is "commit (synthetic)"?
• 1139: Need to display commit and rollback counts in HTML output
• 1135: Upgrade should leave unzip.xml alone
• 1134: Skew Analyzer "Show top n" default value should be "All", not "0"

5.1.3.0 (2005-12-02)

New features

• New SHOW-CONFIDENTIALITY-LABEL profiler parameter allows users to label their profile documents as confidential company property.

Bug fixes

• 1127: Profiler 5.1.2.0 abnormally terminates on Windows 2000
• 1125: Sections 5.3.4.* display incorrectly as 5.3.3.*
• 1123: Error in Hotsos Profiler User Guide - Release 5.1.2.0
• 1119: Profiler dies with SXXP0003..."event" must not contain the '<' character
• 1118: Profiler ignores boolean option specifications
• 1028: FORG0001: Invalid dateTime value. Non-existent date

5.1.2.0 (2005-11-08)

New features

• Compute Oracle trace file timing unit automatically. This allows users to use the Profiler more easily with trace files from instances running different versions of Oracle.
• Elide the Profile by Cursor in the same manner as we elide other sections within the profile report, governed by the CONTRIBUTIONS-MAXIMUM-LIST-LENGTH parameter. This yields a significant performance improvement for trace files containing many distinct SQL texts.

Bug fixes

• 1114: ERROR lines in trace file not reported in HTML output
• 1099: P5 Console passing wrong value for --trcunit to P5PROF
• 1066: P5 java.lang.OutOfMemoryError on Large Trace Files - Similar to ticket 1053
• 1053: XSLT processor crashes with Java out of memory error on large files
• 1050: Files with two periods in name crash console
• 1048: Profiler v5.1.0.11 attributing RPC Call unlike newer v4.1.4 and higher
• 1046: P5 Console application crashes when using file names with multiple '.' separators
• 1038: Subroutine and Cursor Profile totals don't match

5.1.1.0 (2005-10-07)

New features

• None.

Bug fixes

• 1085: No Java at install time
• 1080: Transformation Failed error when running profiler
• 1040: Error in Skew Analyzer output?
• 1037: Use of uninitialized value ...at p5k.pl line 2000/2007
• 1024: Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at p5k.pl line 2172
• 1023: Can't spawn "cmd.exe": No such file or directory at p5prof.pl line 135
• 1022: p5skew: can't open '| "C:\...\java.exe" -jar ... >....html' (Bad file descriptor) at p5skew.pl 251
• 1018: FORG0001: Invalid dateTime value. Day is out of range
• 1014: Getting invalid license when installing P5 Profiler
• 1011: p5k throws uninitialized variable warnings to STDERR
• 1008: Strange characters in P5 output
• 1007: FORG0001: Invalid dateTime value on line 88 of task.xsl

5.1.0.0 (2005-09-16)

New features

• All new user interface
• All new report format

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Thank you for your purchase of Method R Profiler.

The SLA manager automatically records response times of business tasks and allows you to answer questions like, "What percentage of 'Book Order' button clicks executed over the past month have returned in 2 seconds or less?" Or, "Given current trends, when will our 99th percentile response time of 'Book Order' exceed 2 seconds?"

ILO, the instrumentation library for Oracle, is an open source project directed by Method R Corporation developers. It contains PL/SQL procedures for measuring tasks using Oracle extended SQL trace. The procedures are installed and compiled in the target Oracle instance and can be called by any language with access to the Oracle database tier.