dotMemory command line scheduled snapshots

Question

I'm running dotMemory command line against an IoT Windows Forms application which requires many hours of tests on a custom appliance.

My purpose is to get memory snapshots on a time basis, while the application is running on the appliance. For example, if the test is designed to run for 24h, I want to get a 10 seconds memory snapshot each hour.

I found 2 ways of doing it:

1. Run dotMemory.exe and get a standalone snapshot on a time basis, by using schtasks to schedule each execution;
2. Run dotMemory using the attach and trigger arguments and get all the snapshots on a single file.

The first scenario it's ready for me, but as it is easy to see, the second one is much better for further analysis after collecting the data.

I'm able to start it by using a command just like:

C:\dotMemory\dotMemory.exe attach $processId --trigger-on-activation --trigger-timer=10s --trigger-max-snapshots=24 --trigger-delay=3600s --save-to-dir=c:\dotMemory\Snapshots

Here comes my problem:

• How can I make the command/process stop after it reaches the max-snapshot value without any human intervention?

Reference: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/dotmemory/Working_with_dotMemory_Command-Line_Profiler.html

Answer 1

If you start your app under profiling instead of attaching to the already running process, stopping the profiling session will kill the app under profiling. You can stop profiling session by passing ##dotMemory["disconnect"] command to the dotMemory console stdin. (E.g. some script can do that after some time).

See dotmemory help service-messages for details

##dotMemory["disconnect"]    Disconnect profiler.
If you started profiling with 'start*' commands, the profiled process will be killed.
If you started profiling with 'attach' command, the profiler will detach from the process.

P.S. Some notes about your command line. With this comand line dotMemory will get a snapshot each 10 seconds but will start to do it after one hour. There is no such thing as "10 seconds memory snapshot" memory snapshot is a momentary snapshot of an object graph in the memory. Right command line for your task will be C:\dotMemory\dotMemory.exe attach $processId --trigger-on-activation --trigger-timer=1h --trigger-max-snapshots=24 --save-to-dir=c:\dotMemory\Snapshots