We review methodologies currently available to interprete time series of
high-resolution high-S/N spectroscopic data of pulsating stars in terms of the
kind of (non-radial) modes that are excited. We illustrate the drastic
improvement of the detection treshold of line-profile variability thanks to the
advancement of the instrumentation over the past two decades. This has led to
the opportunity to interprete line-profile variations with amplitudes of order
m/s, which is a factor 1000 lower than the earliest line-profile time series
studies allowed for.Comment: To appear in Precision Spectroscopy in Astrophysics, Eds . Pasquini,
M. Romaniello, N.C. Santos, and A. Correia, Springer-Verlag series "ESO
Astrophysics Symposia". 4 pages, 1 figur
