Profiling help required

Question

I have a profiling issue - imagine I have the following code...

void main()
{
    well_written_function();
    badly_written_function();
}
void well_written_function()
{
    for (a small number)
    {
        highly_optimised_subroutine();
    }
}
void badly_written_function()
{
    for (a wastefully and unnecessarily large number)
    {
        highly_optimised_subroutine();
    }
}
void highly_optimised_subroutine()
{
    // lots of code
}

If I run this under vtune (or other profilers) it is very hard to spot that anything is wrong. All the hotspots will appear in the section marked "// lots of code" which is already optimised. The badly_written_function() will not be highlighted in any way even though it is the cause of all the trouble.

Is there some feature of vtune that will help me find the problem?

Is there some sort of mode whereby I can find the time taken by badly_written_function() and all of its sub-functions?

Answer 1

That's usually known as a "callgraph profile", and I'm fairly sure Visual Studio will do that.