Seiden Group, specialists in IBM i open source development, today announces the availability of application profiling tool QCachegrind for both Windows and Mac as ready-to-use downloads. The free tool, originally developed by KDE, turns raw application profiling data into meaningful graphs and visualizations that highlight a program’s most time-consuming functions.

Seiden Group enhanced the open source QCachegrind and built installers for Windows and Mac to provide the IBM i community with an alternative to proprietary visualization tools.

PHP developers will use the new QCachegrind in conjunction with PHP’s Xdebug extension, which generates raw debugging and profiling data. QCachegrind turns Xdebug’s output into easy-to-use graphical representations so developers can quickly see and fix potential problems. The graphics highlight which parts of the programs take the most time to execute, use the most memory, and get called most often.

QCachegrind also illustrates the flow of your code in useful ways. For example, it highlights slow “hot paths.” Some hot paths, such as database calls, are unavoidable. Often, however, developers can simplify or reduce the number of times they call less critical hot path functions, once they know about them.

QCachegrind isn’t limited to use with PHP. It can visualize profiling data from any open source application that supports its data format, including those written in Node.js and Python.

In addition to offering QCachegrind as a free download, Seiden Group has contributed the enhanced source code back to the open source community.

To download the profiling visualization tool, visit the QCachegrind Download page on the Seiden Group website. You can also download the free CommunityPlus+ PHP and learn more about Seiden Group’s PHP setup, migration, and support services.