[PATCH v2 06/14] perf test: Refactor parallel poll loop to drain all pipes simultaneously
From: Ian Rogers
Date: Sun May 31 2026 - 01:28:23 EST
When running tests in parallel with verbose output (-v), child processes
write to pipes. If a test produces significant output (e.g. Granite Rapids
metric parsing printing hundreds of lines), it fills the 64KB pipe buffer
and blocks.
Previously, the parent harness (finish_test) only polled the pipe of the
"current" test waiting to be printed. Other children blocked indefinitely
until the parent reached them, severely sequentializing execution.
Address this by implementing finish_tests_parallel() to poll and drain
output pipes from all running children simultaneously into per-child buffers.
Reaping occurs out of order as children finish, while final result printing
remains strictly in order.
This drops parallel verbose execution time for the PMU events suite from
~35 seconds down to ~5.9 seconds.
Assisted-by: Gemini-CLI:Google Gemini 3
Signed-off-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
tools/lib/subcmd/run-command.c | 14 ++-
tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c | 194 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
2 files changed, 204 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/tools/lib/subcmd/run-command.c b/tools/lib/subcmd/run-command.c
index b7510f83209a..4f8ec001b948 100644
--- a/tools/lib/subcmd/run-command.c
+++ b/tools/lib/subcmd/run-command.c
@@ -241,8 +241,18 @@ int check_if_command_finished(struct child_process *cmd)
sprintf(filename, "/proc/%u/status", cmd->pid);
status_file = fopen(filename, "r");
if (status_file == NULL) {
- /* Open failed assume finish_command was called. */
- return true;
+ /*
+ * fopen() can fail with ENOENT if the process has been reaped.
+ * It can also fail with EMFILE/ENFILE if RLIMIT_NOFILE is reached,
+ * or with EINTR/ENOMEM. Use kill(pid, 0) as a robust fallback
+ * to distinguish between active processes and dead ones without
+ * consuming file descriptors.
+ */
+ if (errno == ENOENT)
+ return 1;
+ if (kill(cmd->pid, 0) == -1 && errno == ESRCH)
+ return 1;
+ return 0;
}
while (fgets(status_line, sizeof(status_line), status_file) != NULL) {
char *p;
diff --git a/tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c b/tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c
index 2ccb52a776cc..87c6a67beb10 100644
--- a/tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c
+++ b/tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c
@@ -302,6 +302,9 @@ struct child_test {
struct test_suite *test;
int suite_num;
int test_case_num;
+ struct strbuf err_output;
+ int result;
+ bool done;
};
static jmp_buf run_test_jmp_buf;
@@ -509,6 +512,192 @@ static void finish_test(struct child_test **child_tests, int running_test, int c
zfree(&child_tests[running_test]);
}
+static void drain_child_process_err(struct child_test *child)
+{
+ char buf[512];
+ ssize_t len;
+
+ while ((len = read(child->process.err, buf, sizeof(buf) - 1)) > 0) {
+ buf[len] = '\0';
+ strbuf_addstr(&child->err_output, buf);
+ }
+}
+
+static int finish_tests_parallel(struct child_test **child_tests, size_t num_tests, int width)
+{
+ size_t next_to_print = 0;
+ struct pollfd *pfds;
+ size_t *pfd_indices;
+ size_t num_pfds = 0;
+ int last_running = -1;
+ size_t i;
+ int last_suite_printed = -1;
+
+ pfds = calloc(num_tests, sizeof(*pfds));
+ pfd_indices = calloc(num_tests, sizeof(*pfd_indices));
+ if (!pfds || !pfd_indices) {
+ free(pfds);
+ free(pfd_indices);
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ for (i = 0; i < num_tests; i++) {
+ struct child_test *child = child_tests[i];
+
+ if (!child)
+ continue;
+ strbuf_init(&child->err_output, 0);
+ if (child->process.err > 0)
+ fcntl(child->process.err, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK);
+ }
+
+ while (next_to_print < num_tests) {
+ size_t running_count = 0;
+ size_t p;
+
+ while (next_to_print < num_tests &&
+ (!child_tests[next_to_print] || child_tests[next_to_print]->done))
+ next_to_print++;
+
+ if (next_to_print >= num_tests)
+ break;
+
+ num_pfds = 0;
+
+ for (i = next_to_print; i < num_tests; i++) {
+ struct child_test *child = child_tests[i];
+
+ if (!child || child->done)
+ continue;
+
+ if (!check_if_command_finished(&child->process))
+ running_count++;
+
+ if (child->process.err > 0) {
+ pfds[num_pfds].fd = child->process.err;
+ pfds[num_pfds].events = POLLIN | POLLERR | POLLHUP | POLLNVAL;
+ pfd_indices[num_pfds] = i;
+ num_pfds++;
+ }
+ }
+
+ if (perf_use_color_default && running_count != (size_t)last_running) {
+ struct child_test *next_child = child_tests[next_to_print];
+
+ if (last_running != -1)
+ fprintf(debug_file(), PERF_COLOR_DELETE_LINE);
+
+ if (next_child) {
+ if (test_suite__num_test_cases(next_child->test) > 1 &&
+ last_suite_printed != next_child->suite_num) {
+ pr_info("%3d: %-*s:\n", next_child->suite_num + 1, width,
+ test_description(next_child->test, -1));
+ last_suite_printed = next_child->suite_num;
+ }
+ print_test_result(next_child->test, next_child->suite_num,
+ next_child->test_case_num, TEST_RUNNING, width,
+ running_count);
+ }
+ last_running = running_count;
+ }
+
+ if (num_pfds == 0) {
+ if (running_count > 0)
+ usleep(10 * 1000);
+ } else {
+ int pret = poll(pfds, num_pfds, 100);
+
+ if (pret > 0) {
+ for (p = 0; p < num_pfds; p++) {
+ if (pfds[p].revents) {
+ size_t idx = pfd_indices[p];
+ struct child_test *child = child_tests[idx];
+
+ drain_child_process_err(child);
+ /*
+ * If the child closed its end of the pipe (EOF) or encountered
+ * an error, close the file descriptor immediately and set it
+ * to -1. This removes it from the pfds array for subsequent
+ * iterations, preventing a tight CPU busy-loop while waiting
+ * for the process itself to exit.
+ */
+ if (pfds[p].revents & (POLLHUP | POLLERR | POLLNVAL)) {
+ close(child->process.err);
+ child->process.err = -1;
+ }
+ }
+ }
+ }
+ }
+
+ for (i = next_to_print; i < num_tests; i++) {
+ struct child_test *child = child_tests[i];
+
+ if (!child || child->done)
+ continue;
+
+ if (check_if_command_finished(&child->process)) {
+ if (child->process.err > 0) {
+ drain_child_process_err(child);
+ close(child->process.err);
+ child->process.err = -1;
+ }
+ child->result = finish_command(&child->process);
+ child->done = true;
+ }
+ }
+
+ while (next_to_print < num_tests) {
+ struct child_test *child = child_tests[next_to_print];
+
+ if (!child) {
+ next_to_print++;
+ continue;
+ }
+ if (!child->done)
+ break;
+
+ if (perf_use_color_default && last_running != -1) {
+ fprintf(debug_file(), PERF_COLOR_DELETE_LINE);
+ last_running = -1;
+ }
+
+ if (test_suite__num_test_cases(child->test) > 1 &&
+ last_suite_printed != child->suite_num) {
+ pr_info("%3d: %-*s:\n", child->suite_num + 1, width,
+ test_description(child->test, -1));
+ last_suite_printed = child->suite_num;
+ }
+
+ if (verbose > 1) {
+ if (test_suite__num_test_cases(child->test) > 1) {
+ pr_info("%3d.%1d: %s:\n", child->suite_num + 1,
+ child->test_case_num + 1,
+ test_description(child->test,
+ child->test_case_num));
+ } else {
+ pr_info("%3d: %s:\n", child->suite_num + 1,
+ test_description(child->test, -1));
+ }
+ }
+
+ if (verbose > 1 || (verbose == 1 && child->result == TEST_FAIL))
+ fprintf(stderr, "%s", child->err_output.buf);
+
+ print_test_result(child->test, child->suite_num, child->test_case_num,
+ child->result, width, 0);
+ strbuf_release(&child->err_output);
+ child_tests[next_to_print] = NULL;
+ zfree(&child);
+ next_to_print++;
+ }
+ }
+
+ free(pfds);
+ free(pfd_indices);
+ return 0;
+}
+
static int start_test(struct test_suite *test, int curr_suite, int curr_test_case,
struct child_test **child, int width, int pass)
{
@@ -671,8 +860,9 @@ static int __cmd_test(struct test_suite **suites, int argc, const char *argv[],
}
if (!sequential) {
/* Parallel mode starts tests but doesn't finish them. Do that now. */
- for (size_t x = 0; x < num_tests; x++)
- finish_test(child_tests, x, num_tests, width);
+ err = finish_tests_parallel(child_tests, num_tests, width);
+ if (err)
+ goto err_out;
}
}
err_out:
--
2.54.0.823.g6e5bcc1fc9-goog