Types of IDs

Multi-threaded, multi-process, and distributed programs contain a variety of IDs. The following types are used in the CLI and the GUI:

System PID

This is the process ID and is generally called the PID.

System TID

This is the ID of the system kernel or user thread. On some systems (for example, AIX), the TIDs have no obvious meaning. On other systems, they start at 1 and are incremented by 1 for each thread.

TotalView thread ID

This is usually identical to the system TID. On some systems (such as AIX) where the threads have no obvious meaning, TotalView uses its own IDs.

pthread ID

This is the ID assigned by the Posix pthreads package. If this differs from the system TID, the TID is a pointer value that points to the pthread ID.

Debugger PID

This is an ID created by TotalView that lets it identify processes. It is a sequentially numbered value beginning at 1 that is incremented for each new process. If the target process is killed and restarted (that is, you use the dkill and drun commands), the TotalView PID does not change. The system PID changes, however, since the operating system has created a new target process.