form such as u2018 1 u2019 u2018 2 u2019 and u2018 3 u2019 or alphanumeric the number of levels of trace is dependent upon the level of granularity of control desired the trace levels range between a high and low severity based on impact within the running program the tracing facility has a configurable overall logging level that is used to determine if a trace record is to be written to a log file typically persistent storage such as that of storage device 144 of fig1 for example if a trace record is deemed to be at a high enough level such as u2018 fatal u2019 the record may be written out to the log file the trace record written during operation 230 is then examined during operation 240 to determine if it exceeds an established threshold value when the trace record level exceeds the threshold the trace record is written to a persistent log file during operation 250 otherwise processing reverts to operation 210 wherein tracing of the running program is performed as before the trace facility 122 also has a configurable history level that is used to determine at what level of severity the content of the trace buffer 124 is caused to be written to the log file typically this level would be set low such as that of u2018 info u2019 so as to capture any history data related to an error condition having written a trace record in operation 250 processing moves to operation 260 during which a determination is made regarding existence of a specific trap value a trap value is a specified value used as a trigger or signal to initiate logging of history data for a specific program activity such a trap value may be a condition code unique to a program.