, Up:
profile n.
1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customize the program's behavior. Used to avoid [hardcoded] choices (see also [dot file], [rc file]). 2. [techspeak] A report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program, used to find and [tune] away the [hot spot]s in it. This sense is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time (such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than per-routine, but the idea is similar. 3.[techspeak] A subset of a standard used for a particular purpose. This sense confuses hackers who wander into the weird world of ISO standards no end!
Node:
, Next:
, Previous: