summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/tools/perf/Documentation
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorAndi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>2014-11-12 18:05:20 -0800
committerArnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>2014-12-01 20:00:31 -0300
commit8b7bad58efb7e3aaff60f7c1fa4361fb8c23181d (patch)
treec39e7c6d25e0b88c22b3333d925e641437f5a91b /tools/perf/Documentation
parent6c0345b73b970078c3e71ecc614a007207a1428a (diff)
perf callchain: Support handling complete branch stacks as histograms
Currently branch stacks can be only shown as edge histograms for individual branches. I never found this display particularly useful. This implements an alternative mode that creates histograms over complete branch traces, instead of individual branches, similar to how normal callgraphs are handled. This is done by putting it in front of the normal callgraph and then using the normal callgraph histogram infrastructure to unify them. This way in complex functions we can understand the control flow that lead to a particular sample, and may even see some control flow in the caller for short functions. Example (simplified, of course for such simple code this is usually not needed), please run this after the whole patchkit is in, as at this point in the patch order there is no --branch-history, that will be added in a patch after this one: tcall.c: volatile a = 10000, b = 100000, c; __attribute__((noinline)) f2() { c = a / b; } __attribute__((noinline)) f1() { f2(); f2(); } main() { int i; for (i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) f1(); } % perf record -b -g ./tsrc/tcall [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ] [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.044 MB perf.data (~1923 samples) ] % perf report --no-children --branch-history ... 54.91% tcall.c:6 [.] f2 tcall | |--65.53%-- f2 tcall.c:5 | | | |--70.83%-- f1 tcall.c:11 | | f1 tcall.c:10 | | main tcall.c:18 | | main tcall.c:18 | | main tcall.c:17 | | main tcall.c:17 | | f1 tcall.c:13 | | f1 tcall.c:13 | | f2 tcall.c:7 | | f2 tcall.c:5 | | f1 tcall.c:12 | | f1 tcall.c:12 | | f2 tcall.c:7 | | f2 tcall.c:5 | | f1 tcall.c:11 | | | --29.17%-- f1 tcall.c:12 | f1 tcall.c:12 | f2 tcall.c:7 | f2 tcall.c:5 | f1 tcall.c:11 | f1 tcall.c:10 | main tcall.c:18 | main tcall.c:18 | main tcall.c:17 | main tcall.c:17 | f1 tcall.c:13 | f1 tcall.c:13 | f2 tcall.c:7 | f2 tcall.c:5 | f1 tcall.c:12 The default output is unchanged. This is only implemented in perf report, no change to record or anywhere else. This adds the basic code to report: - add a new "branch" option to the -g option parser to enable this mode - when the flag is set include the LBR into the callstack in machine.c. The rest of the history code is unchanged and doesn't know the difference between LBR entry and normal call entry. - detect overlaps with the callchain - remove small loop duplicates in the LBR Current limitations: - The LBR flags (mispredict etc.) are not shown in the history and LBR entries have no special marker. - It would be nice if annotate marked the LBR entries somehow (e.g. with arrows) v2: Various fixes. v3: Merge further patches into this one. Fix white space. v4: Improve manpage. Address review feedback. v5: Rename functions. Better error message without -g. Fix crash without -b. v6: Rebase v7: Rebase. Use NO_ENTRY in memset. v8: Port to latest tip. Move add_callchain_ip to separate patch. Skip initial entries in callchain. Minor cleanups. Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com> Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com> Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1415844328-4884-3-git-send-email-andi@firstfloor.org Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'tools/perf/Documentation')
-rw-r--r--tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt7
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt
index 0927bf4e6c2a..22706beffabc 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ OPTIONS
--dump-raw-trace::
Dump raw trace in ASCII.
--g [type,min[,limit],order[,key]]::
+-g [type,min[,limit],order[,key][,branch]]::
--call-graph::
Display call chains using type, min percent threshold, optional print
limit and order.
@@ -177,6 +177,11 @@ OPTIONS
- function: compare on functions
- address: compare on individual code addresses
+ branch can be:
+ - branch: include last branch information in callgraph
+ when available. Usually more convenient to use --branch-history
+ for this.
+
Default: fractal,0.5,callee,function.
--children::