IdealGraphVisualizer file compatibility

[Peter Hofer]

Hi Joe!

> I've been trying to play with igv from
> http://ssw.jku.at/General/Staff/TW/igv.html,
> http://ssw.jku.at/General/Staff/PH/ but I don't know how to generate
> the required log files. What sort of files should I expect the igv to
> be able to read? The example files are graphDocument XMLs.

This is IGV's custom XML format. Its structure is described in Thomas
Wuerthinger's master's thesis:
http://ssw.jku.at/Research/Papers/Wuerthinger07Master/

> I was hoping to be able to generate a file with something like the
> following:
> [...]
> How do I get the jvm to generate the right output file?

You need a debug or fastdebug build of Hotspot. Only the server
compiler can generate IGV output, so you need to specify -server if
your VM uses the client compiler by default.

You can then use -XX:PrintIdealGraphLevel=<level> to enable IGV output
and to control the detail level of the generated output (with 1 being
the minimum).

By default, Hotspot's IGV printer tries to send the output to an IGV
instance listening at localhost:4444. You can instead write it to a
file using -XX:PrintIdealGraphFile=<filename> or use
-XX:PrintIdealGraphAddress=<host> and -XX:PrintIdealGraphPort=<port> for
a different network destination.

Best regards,
 Peter