====== HOWTO: RT latency debugging ======

This page contains information about how to debug latencies on real-time systems.

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===== Latency =====

When a real-time system is said to have //latencies// or that it has a //latency// that needs to be debugged, the term //latency// means "a situation in which a task or an operation took too long to finish". In a real-time context, the time that it takes a system to perform a particular task (i.e. the latency of the task) is important as each task must be able to finish before its specified deadline.

<WRAP rightalign>[[realtime:documentation:technical_basics:latency|Read more about the term latency]]</WRAP>

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===== Techniques =====

  * [[realtime:documentation:howto:debugging:debug-steps|General steps for latency debugging]]
  * [[realtime:documentation:howto:tools:start#latency_detection|Latency detection tools]]
  * [[realtime:documentation:howto:debugging:smi-latency:start|Debugging SMI latencies]]

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