Re: [PATCH] perf record: mmap output file - v2

From: David Ahern
Date: Tue Oct 15 2013 - 09:26:04 EST


On 10/15/13 1:09 AM, Namhyung Kim wrote:
The stat() seems superfluous, here in __cmd_record() we've just checked
the output_name and made sure it exists. Can that stat() call ever fail?

AFAICS it's needed to check current file size. But I think it's better
to use fstat().

Sure fstat could be used over stat -- if it ends up staying.



3)

The rec->bytes_at_mmap_start field feels a bit weird. If I read the code
correctly, in every 'perf record' invocation, rec->bytes_written starts at
0 - i.e. we don't have repeat invocations of cmd_record().

rec->bytes_written is updated when it writes to the output file for
synthesizing COMM/MMAP events (this mmap output is not used at that time).

Ingo: I went through a number of itereations before using the bytes_at_mmap_start. One of those was to use the bytes_written counter. All failed. Header + synthesized events are written to the file before we start farming the ring buffers.

Perhaps a good code cleanup will help figure out why. I needed the functionality ASAP for use with perf-trace -a so I stuck with the new variable. Since this change is working out well, I will look at a code clean up on the next round.

I am traveling to LinuxCon / KVM Forum / Tracing Forum on Friday. Perhaps the clean up and followup patch can be done on the long plane ride; more likely when I return which means 3.14 material.

Actually I worried about the mmap offset not being aligned to page
size. But it seems that's not a problem.

This code snippet makes sure the mmap offset is a multiple of 64M (rec->mmap_size). offset is the argument to mmap; mmap_offset is the where we are within the mmap for the next copy:

+ offset = rec->bytes_at_mmap_start + rec->bytes_written;
+ if (offset < (ssize_t) rec->mmap_size) {
+ rec->mmap_offset = offset;
+ offset = 0;
+ } else
+ rec->mmap_offset = 0;


David
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