The circular buffer complements the post-mortem dump and the cyclic and single-shot measurements. Use the circular buffer to get an overview of the DUT behavior or of specific conditions within a time range, for example, before a post-mortem dump triggers. The circular buffer also helps you identify what initiated the situation that caused the post-mortem dump.

The circular buffer continuously saves a set of variables in a separate container in the PCU results file directory. After a configurable amount of time, it overwrites older values with current ones, so disk usage stays consistent over time. Select which variables to save and how often to save them.

You can also configure the following parameters:

  • Number of files (blocks) that can exist at the same time (before the oldest one is overwritten).
  • Recording time span (block length) for a single file (block).
  • Maximum size of the single files (blocks).
  • Appendix to the container name where a manually saved block set is stored.

The system opens a new file when it reaches either the maximum file size or the configured recording time. The total time span that the circular buffer keeps is usually the number of blocks multiplied by the block length. If the file reaches the size limit before the block length time elapses, the recorded time span decreases and the system starts the next file.