TAU allows you to customize the instrumentation of a program by using a selective instrumentation file. This instrumentation file is used to manually control which parts of the application are profiled and how they are profiled. If you are using one of the TAU compiler wrapper scripts to instrument your application you can use the -tau_options=-optTauSelectFile=<file> option to enable selective instrumentation.

To specify a selective instrumentation file, create a text file and use the following guide to fill it in:

 
		
Here is a example file:
#Tell tau to not profile these functions
BEGIN_EXCLUDE_LIST

void quicksort(int *, int, int)
# The next line excludes all functions beginning with "sort_" and having 
# arguments "int *"
void sort_#(int *)
void interchange(int *, int *)

END_EXCLUDE_LIST

#Exclude these files from profiling
BEGIN_FILE_EXCLUDE_LIST

*.so

END_FILE_EXCLUDE_LIST

BEGIN_INSTRUMENT_SECTION

# A dynamic phase will break up the profile into phase where
# each events is recorded according to what phase of the application
# in which it occured.
dynamic phase name="foo1_bar" file="foo.c" line=26 to line=27

# instrument all the outer loops in this routine
loops file="loop_test.cpp" routine="multiply"

# tracks memory allocations/deallocations as well as potential leaks
memory file="foo.f90" routine="INIT"

# tracks the size of read, write and print statements in this routine
io file="foo.f90" routine="RINB"

END_INSTRUMENT_SECTION

Selective instrumentation files can be created automatically from ParaProf by right clicking on a trial and selecting the Create Selective Instrumentation File menu item.