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author | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000 |
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committer | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000 |
commit | 5d1646d90e1f2cceb9f0828f4b28318cd0ec7744 (patch) | |
tree | a94efe259b9009378be6d90eb30d2b019d95c194 /tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt | |
parent | Initial commit. (diff) | |
download | linux-upstream.tar.xz linux-upstream.zip |
Adding upstream version 5.10.209.upstream/5.10.209upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt | 108 |
1 files changed, 108 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1a7579271 --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +Overhead calculation +-------------------- +The overhead can be shown in two columns as 'Children' and 'Self' when +perf collects callchains. The 'self' overhead is simply calculated by +adding all period values of the entry - usually a function (symbol). +This is the value that perf shows traditionally and sum of all the +'self' overhead values should be 100%. + +The 'children' overhead is calculated by adding all period values of +the child functions so that it can show the total overhead of the +higher level functions even if they don't directly execute much. +'Children' here means functions that are called from another (parent) +function. + +It might be confusing that the sum of all the 'children' overhead +values exceeds 100% since each of them is already an accumulation of +'self' overhead of its child functions. But with this enabled, users +can find which function has the most overhead even if samples are +spread over the children. + +Consider the following example; there are three functions like below. + +----------------------- +void foo(void) { + /* do something */ +} + +void bar(void) { + /* do something */ + foo(); +} + +int main(void) { + bar() + return 0; +} +----------------------- + +In this case 'foo' is a child of 'bar', and 'bar' is an immediate +child of 'main' so 'foo' also is a child of 'main'. In other words, +'main' is a parent of 'foo' and 'bar', and 'bar' is a parent of 'foo'. + +Suppose all samples are recorded in 'foo' and 'bar' only. When it's +recorded with callchains the output will show something like below +in the usual (self-overhead-only) output of perf report: + +---------------------------------- +Overhead Symbol +........ ..................... + 60.00% foo + | + --- foo + bar + main + __libc_start_main + + 40.00% bar + | + --- bar + main + __libc_start_main +---------------------------------- + +When the --children option is enabled, the 'self' overhead values of +child functions (i.e. 'foo' and 'bar') are added to the parents to +calculate the 'children' overhead. In this case the report could be +displayed as: + +------------------------------------------- +Children Self Symbol +........ ........ .................... + 100.00% 0.00% __libc_start_main + | + --- __libc_start_main + + 100.00% 0.00% main + | + --- main + __libc_start_main + + 100.00% 40.00% bar + | + --- bar + main + __libc_start_main + + 60.00% 60.00% foo + | + --- foo + bar + main + __libc_start_main +------------------------------------------- + +In the above output, the 'self' overhead of 'foo' (60%) was add to the +'children' overhead of 'bar', 'main' and '\_\_libc_start_main'. +Likewise, the 'self' overhead of 'bar' (40%) was added to the +'children' overhead of 'main' and '\_\_libc_start_main'. + +So '\_\_libc_start_main' and 'main' are shown first since they have +same (100%) 'children' overhead (even though they have zero 'self' +overhead) and they are the parents of 'foo' and 'bar'. + +Since v3.16 the 'children' overhead is shown by default and the output +is sorted by its values. The 'children' overhead is disabled by +specifying --no-children option on the command line or by adding +'report.children = false' or 'top.children = false' in the perf config +file. |