The dtrace command provides a generic interface to the following essential services provided by the DTrace facility:
Options to list the set of probes and providers currently published by DTrace
Options to enable probes directly using any of the probe description specifiers (provider, module, function, name)
Options to run the D compiler and compile one or more D program files or programs written directly on the command-line
Options to generate anonymous tracing programs (see Anonymous Tracing in DTrace)
Options to generate program stability reports (see DTrace Stability Mechanisms)
Options to modify DTrace tracing and buffering behavior and enable additional D compiler features (see DTrace Options and Tunables)
The dtrace command can also be used to create D scripts by using it in a #! declaration to create an interpreter file. For more information, see Scripting in DTrace. Finally, you can use dtrace to attempt to compile D programs and determine their properties without actually enabling any tracing by using the –e option.