profile

n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file automatically read from
each user's home directory and intended to be easily modified by the user in
order to customize the program's behavior. Used to avoid hardcoded choices
(see also dot file , rc file ). 2. [techspeak] A report on the amounts of
time spent in each routine of a program, used to find and tune away the hot
spots in it. This sense is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units
other than time (such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other
than per-routine, but the idea is similar. 3.[techspeak] A subset of a
standard used for a particular purpose.
