title: Profiling a Python program that calls parallel external programs
body: <p>Similar to this question on <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11041683/python-multiprocess-profiling">profiling multiprocessing code</a>...</p>
  
  <p>I need to profile my codebase, and I'd planned to use cProfile.  This program is essentially a genetic algorithm that runs an evaluation function in parallel.  The kicker is that this evaluation function externally calls another Python program via the command line.</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to use cProfile to profile the overall run?  Basically, I'd intended to start the profiling inside my worker function (cumulative time, pcalls, memory overhead, etc.), however I'm concerned that the external programs will not be visible to the profiler.</p>