Working with and Viewing Processes and Threads

You can view the status of any or all your processes and threads in a variety of ways.

The Root Window contains an overview of all processes and threads being debugged. Just dive on a process or a thread for detailed information.

Figure 16: Processes and Threads in the Root Window

The Process Window’s Processes and Threads tabs display all threads and processes, color-coded to define state.

Figure 17 shows a tab with processes in three different states:

Figure 17: The Processes Tab

The orange cells represent processes that are at a breakpoint, blue is a stopped process (usually due to another process or thread hitting a breakpoint), and green denotes that all threads in the process are running or can run.

If you select a group using the Process Window’s group selector pulldown menu, TotalView dims the blocks for processes not in the group, Figure 18.

Figure 18: The Processes Tab: Showing Group Selection

To switch between running processes, click on a box representing a process to switch to that context.

Similarly, clicking on a thread in the Threads tab changes the context to that thread.

Viewing the value of a variable in each process or thread:

It is often useful to simultaneously see the value of a variable in each process or thread. Use View > Show Across > Thread or View > Show Across > Process to display the variable either across processes or threads, Figure 19.

Figure 19: Viewing Across Processes

If you are debugging an MPI program, use the Tools > Message Queue Graph Window graphically to display the program’s message queues.

Figure 20: A Message Queue Graph

You can click on the boxed numbers to place the associated process into a Process Window, or click on a red number next to an arrow to display more information about that message queue.

See More

On manipulating processes and threads in various ways: “Manipulating Processes and Threads” in the TotalView User Guide