In general, you do not need to completely specify an arena. TotalView provides values for any missing elements. TotalView either uses built-in default values or obtains them from the current focus. The following explains how TotalView fills in missing pieces:
• If you don’t use a width, TotalView uses the width from the current focus.
• If you don’t use a PID, TotalView uses the PID from the current focus.
• If you set the focus to a list, there is no longer a default arena. This means that you must explicitly name a width and a PID. You can, however, omit the TID. (If you omit the TID, TotalView defaults to the less-than symbol <.)
You can type a PID without typing a TID. If you omit the TID, TotalView uses the default <, where < indicates the lowest numbered worker thread in the process. If, however, the arena explicitly names a thread group, < means the lowest numbered member of the thread group.
TotalView does not use the TID from the current focus, since the TID is a process-relative value.
• A dot before or after the number specifies a process or a thread. For example, 1. is clearly a PID, while .7 is clearly a TID.
If you type a number without typing a dot, the CLI most often interprets the number as being a PID.
• If the width is t, you can omit the dot. For instance, t7 refers to thread 7.
• If you enter a width and don’t specify a PID or TID, TotalView uses the PID and TID from the current focus.
If you use a letter as a group specifier, TotalView obtains the rest of the arena specifier from the default focus.
• You can use a group ID or tag followed by a /. TotalView obtains the rest of the arena from the default focus.
Focus merging can also influence how TotalView fills in missing specifiers. For more information, see "Merging Focuses".