Collection and representation of program call stacks

A method comprising:

• receiving a stack file that includes a plurality of stacks, wherein each stack of the plurality of stacks includes a sequence of flows being executed;
• generating a graph for the stack file by sequentially accessing and reading the plurality of stacks from the stack file, wherein the graph includes a plurality of entries and each entry of the plurality of entries represents a unique sequence of flows, and wherein generating the graph includes:
• adding a first entry of the plurality of entries to the graph, wherein the first entry of the plurality of entries represents the sequence of flows in a first stack of the plurality of stacks;
• for a remaining stack of the plurality of stacks after the first stack of the plurality of entries:
• determining that a particular sequence of flows included in the remaining stack of the plurality of stacks does not match a previous sequence of flows included in a previous stack of the plurality of stacks;
• and
• based on the determining that the particular sequence of flows included in the remaining stack of the plurality of stacks does not match the previous sequence of flows included in the previous stack of the plurality of stacks, adding a new entry to the graph;
• determining that a weight value for a particular entry of the plurality of entries included in the graph fails to satisfy a weight value threshold;
• and
• removing the particular entry of the plurality of entries from the graph based on the determining that the weight value for the particular entry of the plurality of entries fails to satisfy the weight value threshold.

A system comprising:

• a processing unit;
• and
• computer-readable storage media storing instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, cause the system to:
• generate a graph for a stack file that includes a plurality of stacks by sequentially accessing and reading the plurality of stacks from the stack file, wherein:
• each stack of the plurality of stacks includes a sequence of flows being executed;
• the graph includes a plurality of entries;
• and
• each entry of the plurality of entries represents a unique sequence of flows and includes a weight value that represents a number of times the unique sequence of flows occurs in the stack file;
• determine that a weight value for an entry of the plurality of entries fails to satisfy a weight value threshold;
• and
• remove the entry of the plurality of entries from the graph based on the determining that the weight value for the entry of the plurality of entries fails to satisfy the weight value threshold.