Re: [RFC PATCH 00/10] x86: undwarf unwinder

From: Josh Poimboeuf
Date: Thu Jun 01 2017 - 08:47:12 EST


On Thu, Jun 01, 2017 at 02:17:21PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 01, 2017 at 06:58:20AM -0500, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > > Being able to generate more optimal code in the hottest code paths of the kernel
> > > is the _real_, primary upstream kernel benefit of a different debuginfo method -
> > > which has to be weighed against the pain of introducing a new unwinder. But this
> > > submission does not talk about that aspect at all, which should be fixed I think.
> >
> > Actually I devoted an entire one-sentence paragraph to performance in
> > the documentation:
> >
> > The simpler debuginfo format also enables the unwinder to be relatively
> > fast, which is important for perf and lockdep.
> >
> > But I'll try to highlight that a little more.
>
> That's relative to a DWARF unwinder.

Yes.

> It doesn't appear to be possible to get anywhere near a frame-pointer
> unwinder due to having to do this log(n) lookup for every single
> frame.

Hm, is there something faster, yet not substantially bigger? Hash?
Trie?

--
Josh