Technical requirements

First of all, you will need a C++ compiler. All examples in this chapter were compiled on a Linux system using GCC or Clang compilers. All major Linux distributions have GCC as a part of their regular install; newer versions may be available in the distribution's repositories. The Clang compiler is available through the LLVM project, http://llvm.org/, although several Linux distributions also maintain their own repositories. On Windows, Microsoft Visual Studio is the most common compiler, but both GCC and Clang are available as well.

Second, you will need a program profiling tool. In this chapter, we will use the Linux "perf" profiler. Again, it comes installed (or is available for installation) on most Linux distributions. The documentation can be found here: https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page.

We will also demonstrate the use of another profiler, the CPU profiler from the set of Google Performance tools (GperfTools) found...