Re: [RFC PATCH v1 0/2] perf: Support for SDT markers

From: Hemant Kumar
Date: Wed Feb 26 2014 - 04:04:04 EST


On 02/26/2014 01:48 PM, Namhyung Kim wrote:
Hi Masami and Hemant,

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:27:07 +0530, Hemant Kumar wrote:
On 02/25/2014 05:14 PM, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
(2014/02/24 18:14), Hemant Kumar wrote:
First, scan the binaries using :
# perf list sdt --scan

Creating a cache of SDT markers...
perf sdt cache created!
Use : "perf list sdt"
to see the SDT markers
Hmm, in that case, I think you'd better introduce perf-sdt for scanning.
e.g.

# perf sdt --scan app
Hmm, this seems a better idea :)

then you can add app to sdt cache, without app,

# perf sdt --scan

will just scans all binaries on the PATH and the libraries which listed
by `ldconfig --print-caceh`
What should be done with the new perf sdt command? If it's only
intended to list the markers, I'd just suggest to add "perf list sdt" as
this patch did.

If we display the SDT markers along with the other events in perf list, then I think we can go with
perf list sdt. I am not too sure though! :)

For me, the main issue was that the markers are not events. They become events after
we place them in the uprobe_events file just like functions. But we use `perf list` to
display all the "events" available on a system. Isn't it?

Plus I think it'd be better if event_glob pattern also looks for sdt
markers so that user can find out a specific markers easily, e.g.:

# perf list rtld:*

or

# perf list %rtld:*

Good idea! Will surely include support for this in event_glob pattern.

And perf-list shows only the SDTs in the cache.
Well, what will be better? perf-list or perf-sdt or perf-list sdt??
If perf-list, then wouldn't it be a huge list!!
The output of perf list is already a huge list and we paginate it. So I
don't think it's gonna be a problem. :)

Ok! Then we can use perf list. :)


- Add support to probe these SDT markers and integrate with a previous patch
(support to perf to probe SDT markers) posted in lkml.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/10/23/10
Yeah, but I think we'd better choose another way to integrate it.
Since SDT is like markers(static events), setting each of them via perf-probe is
not intuitive. :) I'd like to use it as an event, e.g.

# perf top -e "%libgcc:unwind"

And perf top internally calls perf-probe to add new uprobe event, and
clean the new event at exit.
Yeah! Right :) Makes sense.

Will implement the suggestions in the next version asap!
That would be great!

--
Thanks
Hemant Kumar

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