Defining the Thread of Interest (TOI)
The TOI is specified as p.t, where p is the TotalView process ID (PID) and t is the TotalView thread ID (TID). The p.t combination identifies the POI (Process of Interest) and TOI. The TOI is the primary thread affected by a command. This means that it is the primary focus for a TotalView command. For example, while the dstep command always steps the TOI, it may also run the rest of the threads in the POI and step other processes in the group.
In addition to using numerical values, you can also use two special symbols:
*The less-than character (<) indicates the lowest numbered worker thread in a process, and is used instead of the TID value. If, however, the arena explicitly names a thread group, the < symbol means the lowest numbered member of the thread group. This symbol lets TotalView select the first user thread, which is not necessarily thread 1.
*A dot (.) indicates the current set. Although you seldom use this symbol interactively, it can be useful in scripts.