This predicate invokes the profiler. The profiler first executes Goal in profiling mode, which means that during its execution interrupts are generated at regular intervals and the profiler remembers the currently executing predicate. When the goal succeeds or fails, the profiler prints so, and then it prints the statistics about the time spent in every encountered predicate. Goal can be any Prolog goal, it does not have to be compiled in a special profiling mode and no Prolog flags have to be set. The time spent in simple predicates (i.e. those with call_type external, written in C) is counted towards their parent predicate.
In cases where the predicate name is not available, e.g. local goals in a locked module, the information is grouped under a blank predicate name entry for the module.
Flags is a list of option flags:
A temporary file <tmp_dir>/eclipse.prof.<pid> is used to collect the profiling information and is removed upon exit (unless keep_file option is given).
[eclipse 6]: profile(boyer, []).
rewriting...
proving...
goal succeeded
PROFILING STATISTICS
--------------------
Goal: boyer
Total user time: 10.55s
Predicate Module %Time Time
-------------------------------------------------
=.. /2 sepia_kernel 31.1% 3.28s
garbage_collect /0 sepia_kernel 23.5% 2.48s
rewrite /2 eclipse 21.6% 2.28s
rewrite_args /2 eclipse 17.2% 1.82s
equal /2 eclipse 4.1% 0.43s
remainder /3 eclipse 0.9% 0.10s
...
plus /3 eclipse 0.1% 0.01s
yes.