Measuring various properties of execution traces to help build better trace analysis tools

Understanding the behavior of a software system by studying its execution traces can be extremely difficult due to the sheer size and complexity of typical traces. In this paper, we propose that if various aspects that contribute to a trace's complexity could be measured and if this information could be used by tools, then trace analysis could be facilitated. For this purpose, we present a set of simple and practical metrics that aim at measuring various properties of execution traces. We also show the results of applying these metrics to traces of three software systems and suggest how the results could be used to improve existing trace analysis tools.