1 Introduction

The Event Tracer (ET) uses the built-in trace mechanism in Erlang and provides tools for collection and graphical viewing of trace data.

The viewed trace data is normally collected from Erlang trace ports or files.

1.1  Scope and Purpose

This manual describes the Event Tracer (ET) application, as a component of the Erlang/Open Telecom Platform development environment. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the Erlang Development Environment, which is described in a separate User's Guide.

1.2  Prerequisites

The following prerequisites are required for understanding the material in the Event Tracer (ET) User's Guide:

• familiarity with the Erlang system and Erlang programming in general and the especially the art of Erlang tracing.

The application requires Erlang/OTP release R13BB or later. If you use the old GS based GUI it does suffice with R7B.

1.3  About This Manual

In addition to this introductory chapter, the Event Tracers User's Guide contains the following chapters:

• Chapter 2: "Tutorial" provides a walk-through of the various parts of the application. The tutorial is based on Jayson Vantuyl's article http://souja.net/2009/04/making-sense-of-erlangs-event-tracer.html.

• Chapter 3: "Description" describes the architecture and typical usage of the application.

• Chapter 4: "Advanced examples" gives some usage examples

1.4  Where to Find More Information

Refer to the following documentation for more information about Event Tracer (ET) and about the Erlang/OTP development system:

• the Reference Manual of the Event Tracer (ET).

• documentation of basic tracing in erlang:trace/4 and erlang:trace_pattern/3 and then the utilities derived from these: dbg, observer, invisio and et.

• Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World by Joe Armstrong; ISBN: 978-1-93435-600-5