7.12 Trace counts

A program with debugging enabled may be run in a special mode that causes it to write out to a trace count file a record of how many times each debugger event in the program was executed during that run.

Trace counts are useful for determining what parts of a failing program are being run and possibly causing the failure; this is called slicing. Slices from failing and passing runs can be compared to see which parts of the program are being executed during failing runs, but not during passing runs; this is called dicing.