Re: [PATCH 02/52] tools/perf/build: Add feature check core code

From: Namhyung Kim
Date: Thu Oct 10 2013 - 04:22:16 EST


On Thu, 10 Oct 2013 09:21:21 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * Namhyung Kim <namhyung@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ingo,
>>
>> On Tue, 8 Oct 2013 12:10:32 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>> > +feature_check = $(eval $(feature_check_code)); $(info CHK: config/feature-checks/test-$(1))
>> > +define feature_check_code
>> > + feature-$(2) := $(shell make -C config/feature-checks test-$1 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null && echo 1 || echo 0)
>> > +endef
>> > +
>> > +#
>> > +# Build the feature check binaries in parallel, ignore errors, ignore return value and suppress output:
>> > +#
>> > +$(info Testing features:)
>> > +$(shell make -i -j -C config/feature-checks >/dev/null 2>&1)
>> > +$(info done)
>> > +
>> > +FEATURE_TESTS = hello
>> > +
>> > +$(foreach test,$(FEATURE_TESTS),$(call feature_check,$(test),$(test)))
>>
>> So as far as I can see, all the feature checking goes twice - once in
>> $(shell make ...) and another in $(foreach test,...). They look like
>> doing exactly same thing. And the final Makefile in this series still
>> has it twice. Is it intentional or did I miss something?
>
> Yes - and this is a performance trick.
>
> The first run is to build them all in parallel:
>
> $(shell $(MAKE) OUTPUT=$(OUTPUT_FEATURES) LDFLAGS=$(LDFLAGS) -i -j -C config/feature-checks $(CORE_FEATURE_TESTS) >/dev/null 2>&1)
>
> Note how we build in parallel (-j), ignore errors (-i) and suppress all
> output.
>
> This is very fast even if all testcases are rebuilt, but we cannot
> possibly recover which feature test failed.
>
> So we run it once more, this time serially, and recover the test results.
> The vast majority of testcases will pass, and the repeat build will do, in
> essence:
>
> comet:~/tip/tools/perf/config/feature-checks> perf stat --null --repeat 10 make test-libelf >/dev/null
>
> Performance counter stats for 'make test-libelf' (10 runs):
>
> 0.014682647 seconds time elapsed ( +- 0.14% )
>
> so it's just 14 msecs to recover each testcase result.

Okay, got it. Thanks for the explanation! :)

>
> In theory we could optimize this further, by generating an actual test
> success/failure file via the initial parallel make attempt, and recovering
> those flags via the serial loop. That should be even faster.

Well, I think it's already fast enough. ;)

Thanks,
Namhyung
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