A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide a mechanism for inserting performance code markers into programs to obtain and provide data regarding the run-time operation of the programs. The computing system has an init module, a performance code marker module for obtaining and storing the run-time internal state data for later retrieval, and an uninit module. The init module is executed before any run-time internal state data is collected. The performance code marker module is executed each time run-time internal state data is to be collected. The uninit module is executed after all run-time internal state data desired has been collected.