What does --enable-profiling option do when compiling Python?

I'm buildinng my own Python-2.6 in linux. There's an option in configure for enabling C-level code profiling. I've never used tha开发者_Python百科t before; so just out of curiousity, what does that option do? what is it for?

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Google tells me this:

Python can now be built with additional profiling for the interpreter itself, intended as an aid to people developing the Python core. Providing ---enable-profiling to the configure script will let you profile the interpreter with gprof

If you are unfamiliar with gprof, have a look at this link