My problem was that I had used tools that use the x-axis for time. So you can follow program execution over time by reading the graph from left to right.
However, that is NOT how flame graphs work. At each level of stack depth the called functions are sorted alphabetically and the cumulated time spent in the function is represented as the length of the bar in x-direction. So yes, x has a notion of time or duration, but what you see is not chronologically ordered data.
Understanding that brought the breakthrough for me.
My problem was that I had used tools that use the x-axis for time. So you can follow program execution over time by reading the graph from left to right.
However, that is NOT how flame graphs work. At each level of stack depth the called functions are sorted alphabetically and the cumulated time spent in the function is represented as the length of the bar in x-direction. So yes, x has a notion of time or duration, but what you see is not chronologically ordered data.
Understanding that brought the breakthrough for me.