Types
Start a collector process.
The collector collects trace events and keeps them ordered by their timestamp. The timestamp may either reflect the time when the actual trace data was generated (trace_ts) or when the trace data was transformed into an event record (event_ts). If the time stamp is missing in the trace data (missing timestamp option to erlang:trace/4) the trace_ts will be set to the event_ts.
Events are reported to the collector directly with the report function or indirectly via one or more trace clients. All reported events are first filtered thru the collector filter before they are stored by the collector. By replacing the default collector filter with a customized dito it is possible to allow any trace data as input. The collector filter is a dictionary entry with the predefined key {filter, collector} and the value is a fun of arity 1. See et_selector:make_event/1 for interface details, such as which erlang:trace/1 tuples that are accepted.
The collector has a built-in dictionary service. Any term may be stored as value in the dictionary and bound to a unique key. When new values are inserted with an existing key, the new values will overwrite the existing ones. Processes may subscribe on dictionary updates by using {subscriber, pid()} as dictionary key. All dictionary updates will be propagated to the subscriber processes matching the pattern {{subscriber, '_'}, '_'} where the first '_' is interpreted as a pid().
In global trace mode, the collector will automatically start tracing on all connected Erlang nodes. When a node connects, a port tracer will be started on that node and a corresponding trace client on the collector node.
Default values:
- parent_pid - self().
- event_order - trace_ts.
- trace_global - false.
- trace_pattern - undefined.
- trace_port - 4711.
- trace_max_queue - 50.