Category : System Diagnostics for your computer
Archive   : SYSACT13.ZIP
Filename : SYSACT.DOC

SYSACT PCDOS/MSDOS SYSACT
V1.3 3/6/92

NAME
SYSACT, ACTRPT, SAFMT

DESCRIPTION
This Unix-like facility is provided to help advanced PC users
analyze system activity and to identify programs that are consuming
the majority of system resources.

System activity logging is performed by the SYSACT resident
program. Upon termination of a process, one record is written to
the file C:\SYSACT.LOG. The SARPT batch can summarize this data.

FILES
C:\SYSACT.LOG system activity logging file
SYSACT.COM system activity logger
ACTRPT.BAT report generator batch
SAFMT.EXE report formatter, generally called by ACTRPT
SYSACT.H activity log file format definition
ASKYN.COM utility used by ACTRPT batch to ask questions
QSORT.COM a sort command with no file size limit


DISTRIBUTION
This system activity facility is provided free of charge for
personal use only. You may copy and distribute this package for
any non-commercial purpose. Please contact the author for
licensing for other applications.

This document and the associated programs are copyright material
and should not be modified or sold.

Copyright (C) 1987, 1992 Samuel H. Smith,
All rights reserved.

Address all inquiries to:
Samuel H. Smith
P.O. Box 4808
Panorama City, CA 91412-4808
(818) 891-6780 (Tool Shop BBS)
(818) 891-4228 (voice)


REVISION HISTORY
01/25/87 v1.0, Initial release.

02/02/87 v1.1, Added -S option to SAFMT.
Added ACTRPT batch file.
Included ASKYN utility.

02/07/87 v1.2, Included QSORT because DOS sort command will not
sort the activity log when it gets over 64k.
Added -R option to ASKYN and changed ACTRPT to
take advantage of it.


03/07/92 v1.3, Recompiled SAFMT with newer compiler to correct some
problems found when running over a network.


SYSACT(2) PCDOS/MSDOS SYSACT(2)


NAME
SYSACT - System activity logger

SYNOPSIS
SYSACT.COM (called from AUTOEXEC.BAT)

FILES
C:\SYSACT.LOG system activity log file
SYSACT.H log file format definition

DESCRIPTION
SYSACT becomes resident and creates a system activity file, in the
form described in SYSACT.H. This file is interpreted and reported
on by SAFMT.COM and ACTRPT.BAT.

SYSACT should be called once during system startup. This should
normally be done in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The activity logger
becomes resident and will remain active until the system is
rebooted.

In multi-process environments, such as DoubleDOS, the activity
logger must be started separately in each partition. Each instance
of SYSACT consumes only about 1k of RAM.

Here is a sample of the contents of the SYSACT.LOG file:
sort.exe 02-01-87 13:28:34 00:00:01.27 0002 0001 0005
turbo.com 02-01-87 13:28:58 00:00:44.21 0003 0000 0010
list.com 02-01-87 13:29:52 00:00:39.99 0006 0000 001B
q.com 02-01-87 13:31:39 00:01:38.92 0001 0001 0016
sort.exe 02-01-87 13:31:56 00:00:10.50 0002 0001 0005
ed.exe 02-01-87 13:43:43 00:08:10.27 0004 0001 0035


NOTES
The DOS call counters are stored in 16 bits and will overflow to
zero without warning.

SYSACT only reports on processes that have terminated.



ACTRPT PCDOS/MSDOS ACTRPT


NAME
ACTRPT - Activity report generator batch

SYNOPSIS
actrpt

DESCRIPTION
ACTRPT provides a simplified interface to the facilities of SAFMT.
It asks a series of questions and then processes the activity log
based on the operator's responses.


DIALOGUE
Do you want a standard system activity report? (y/n)

Do you want a system activity report that includes lines for
commands executed only once? (y/n)

Do you want a system activity report without the I/O counts? (y/n)

Output report to the screen? (y/n)

Output report to the printer? (y/n)

Do you want to replace the activity log with a summary
of it's current contents? (y/n)


SAMPLE OUTPUT
Here is an example of a report generated by ACTRPT:

Total Average -- Sys Call Averages --
Time Time Reads Writes Misc Runs Command
---------- --------- ------- ------- ------- ------ --------------
5070.4 316.90 2 3 24 16 turbo.com
3068.5 191.78 3 2639 2757 16 **others
1747.0 75.96 3 0 19 23 list.com
335.2 23.94 2 1 2222 14 more.com
178.3 25.48 9 4 6852 7 vi.exe
177.8 29.63 1 655 46 6 masm.exe
108.1 4.32 3 22 6 25 sarpt.com
3.6 1.19 0 0 12 3 sortall.com
1.3 0.63 2 1 4 2 unique.com
0.8 0.41 0 0 3 2 mode.com




SAFMT PCDOS/MSDOS SAFMT


NAME
SAFMT - Format command summary from system activity log records
(usually called from ACTRPT.BAT)

SYNOPSIS
sort sumfile
actrpt

DESCRIPTION
SAFMT reads a sorted system activity file, in the form described in
SYSACT.H. It adds all records that executed identically-named
commands and writes them to the standard output.

The options are:


-j Combine all commands invoked only once under ``**others''.

-i Exclude columns containing the I/O counts from the output.

-v Exclude column headings from the output.

-s Produce a compact summary file to replace SYSACT.LOG.


A typical sequence for activity reporting is:
sort report1
sort report1
print report1 report2


A typical sequence for activity log maintenance is:
copy c:\sysact.log sysact.old
sort c:\sysact.log