Palmist: a tool to log Palm system activity

In this paper we describe a Palm system call logging tool called Palmist. Palmist allows the practitioner to selectively collect statistics such as the system call invoked, application that invoked the system call, the time of the call and the call arguments. The logging mechanism adds a latency of about 10 msec per call to collect the log. On an average, the system uses about 20 bytes of memory on the PDA to store the log record. The mechanism has limitations in collecting logs for system calls that are needed by the collection mechanism itself. Our logging mechanism works for about 80% (707 of 881) of Palm OS 3.5 system calls. Our system can be utilized by system developers to customize their application behavior to optimize system parameters such as energy consumption, ease of use etc.