A new How It Works page in the docs

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+.. Licensed under the Apache License: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+.. For details: https://bitbucket.org/ned/coveragepy/src/default/NOTICE.txt
+
+.. _howitworks:
+
+=====================
+How Coverage.py works
+=====================
+
+.. :history: 20150812T071000, new page.
+
+For advanced use of coverage.py, or just because you are curious, it helps to
+understand what's happening behind the scenes.  Coverage.py works in three
+phases:
+
+* **Execution**: your code is run, and monitored to see what lines were executed.
+
+* **Analysis**: your code is examined to determine what lines could have run.
+
+* **Reporting**: the results of execution and analysis are combined to produce
+  a coverage number and an indication of missing execution.
+
+The execution phase is handled by the ``coverage run`` command.  The analysis
+and reporting phases are handled by the reporting commands like ``coverage
+report`` or ``coverage html``.
+
+Let's look at each phase in more detail.
+
+
+Execution
+---------
+
+At the heart of the execution phase is a Python trace function.  This is a
+function that Python will invoke for each line executed in a program.
+Coverage.py implements a trace function that records each file and line number
+as it is executed.
+
+Executing a function for every line in your program can make execution very
+slow.  Coverage.py's trace function is implemented in C to reduce that
+slowdown, and also takes care to not trace code that you aren't interested in.
+
+When measuring branch coverage, the same trace function is used, but instead of
+recording line numbers, coverage.py records pairs of line numbers.  Each
+invocation of the trace function remembers the line number, then the next
+invocation records the pair `(prev, this)` to indicate that execution
+transitioned from the previous line to this line.  Internally, these are called
+arcs.
+
+For more details of trace functions, see the Python docs for `sys.settrace`_,
+or if you are really brave, `How C trace functions really work`_.
+
+At the end of execution, coverage.py writes the data it collected to a data
+file, usually named ``.coverage``.  This is a JSON-based file containing all of
+the recorded file names and line numbers executed.
+
+.. _sys.settrace: https://docs.python.org/3/library/sys.html#sys.settrace
+.. _How C trace functions really work: http://nedbatchelder.com/text/trace-function.html
+
+
+Analysis
+--------
+
+After your program has been executed and the line numbers recorded, coverage.py
+needs to determine what lines could have been executed.  Luckily, compiled
+Python files (.pyc files) have a table of line numbers in them.  Coverage.py
+reads this table to get the set of executable lines.
+
+The table isn't used directly, because it records line numbers for docstrings,
+for example, and we don't want to consider them executable.  A few tweaks are
+made for considerations like this, and we have a set of lines that could have
+been executed.
+
+The data file is read to get the set of lines that were executed.  The
+difference between those two sets are the lines that were not executed.
+
+The same principle applies for branch measurement, though the process for
+determining possible branches is more involved.  Coverage.py reads the bytecode
+of the compiled Python file, and decides on a set of possible branches.
+Unfortunately, this process is inexact, and there are some `well-known cases`__
+that aren't correct.
+
+.. __: https://bitbucket.org/ned/coveragepy/issues?status=new&status=open&component=branch
+
+
+Reporting
+---------
+
+Once we have the set of executed lines and missing lines, reporting is just a
+matter of formatting that information in a useful way.  Each reporting method
+(text, html, annotated source, xml) has a different output format, but the
+process is the same: write out the information in the particular format,
+possibly including the source code itself.
+
+
+Plugins
+-------
+
+Plugins interact with these phases.
diff --git a/doc/index.rst b/doc/index.rst
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--- a/doc/index.rst
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@@ -172,6 +172,7 @@ More information
     branch
     subprocess
     api
+    howitworks
     plugins
     contributing
     trouble