pstats: negative time values

[Andrew Dalke]

A few days ago Tom Mortimer wrote:
> A quick question - can anyone tell me how to interpret negative time
> values in pstats.Stats.print_stats() output?

See http://docs.python.org/lib/profile-limits.html

  After the profiler is calibrated, it will be more accurate (in a least
  square sense), but it will sometimes produce negative numbers (when call
  counts are exceptionally low, and the gods of probability work against
  you :-). ) Do not be alarmed by negative numbers in the profile. They
  should only appear if you have calibrated your profiler, and the results
  are actually better than without calibration.

See also http://docs.python.org/lib/profile-calibration.html
for information on how to change the calibration number.

				Andrew
				dalke at dalkescientific.com