%\chapter{Supported formats}

\ViTE can draw traces obtained from four main formats : \paje,
\textit{Paj\'e extented}, \textit{OTF} and \textit{TAU}. 

\section {\paje}
The \paje format is the first format supported by \ViTE. The main
reason is \ViTE was designed to display \paje
traces. \paje\cite{pajeurl, paje, paje2}
is originally an other trace viewer with its own format.
The \paje format\cite{pajefmt} is a self-explained format including the
declaration of each event, state, communication, \dots present in the
trace. \\* 
\ViTE supports most of the \paje features: forest of containers, events,
communications, states, variables, color of states. These files are
recognize by the \texttt{.trace} extension.\\
Warning: for now, \ViTE doesn't support:
\begin{itemize}
\item the push/pop function allowing to stack several states to one
  container,
\item several state lines per container,
\item color on events and communications
\end{itemize}
These functionnalities will be included as soon as possible.

\section {Paj\'e extented}

This format is an extension of the \paje format to allow the user to
have one file per container instead of only one sorted for the \paje format.
One main file contains the definitions item and the name (relative to
the directory of the main file, not absolute) of the extra files.
To follow the \paje format, you just need to add the following field
to the definition of the \texttt{PajeCreateContainer} event:
\begin{verbatim}
FileName string
\end{verbatim}

So each creation of container using a filename different form
\texttt{''} will include the specified file.
For example, if there are $n$ MPI processes running, you can make each
process open and fill a different file (\textit {filename.rank}. The same
features as for the \paje format are supported.
You can include files in an include file to create the same tree as
your architecture (program, node, thread for example) but FileName are only supported
for \texttt{PajeCreateContainer} event.

To read theis format with \ViTE, the main file has to have the
\texttt{.ept} extension. The included ffiles can have any extension
you want as soon as their name are correctly spelled in the first one.

\section {OTF}
%% (see \url {http://www.paratools.com/otf/})
\textit {OTF} or Open Trace Format\cite{otf} was developed by TU Dresden.
It is a free format available created to replace VampirTrace and used
by Vampir\cite{vampir}. 
\ViTE does not bear some OTF features such as snapshots. \ViTE only
stands states, communications and eventlike actions. Althought some
functionnalities are missing, \ViTE generate random colors for the OTF
format the first time you open a file because they are note stored in
the file, and you can use the color settings to change for a better
choice of color.

\section {TAU}

\textit {TAU}\cite{tau} is the latest format added. \ViTE possibilities on this
format have not been fully tested and any bug report is welcome. The
basic features are supported: states, events, communications.\newline

% See \url {http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/tau/home.php} for more
%information on this format.



Any bug report or suggestion about what format should be included in
\ViTE is welcome and can be posted on \ViTE gforge website:
\url{https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/vite/}.

