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-rw-r--r--tools/perf/Documentation/intel-pt.txt44
1 files changed, 44 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/intel-pt.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/intel-pt.txt
index c94c9de31..be764f9ec 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Documentation/intel-pt.txt
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/intel-pt.txt
@@ -671,6 +671,7 @@ The letters are:
e synthesize tracing error events
d create a debug log
g synthesize a call chain (use with i or x)
+ l synthesize last branch entries (use with i or x)
"Instructions" events look like they were recorded by "perf record -e
instructions".
@@ -707,12 +708,26 @@ on the sample is *not* adjusted and reflects the last known value of TSC.
For Intel PT, the default period is 100us.
+Setting it to a zero period means "as often as possible".
+
+In the case of Intel PT that is the same as a period of 1 and a unit of
+'instructions' (i.e. --itrace=i1i).
+
Also the call chain size (default 16, max. 1024) for instructions or
transactions events can be specified. e.g.
--itrace=ig32
--itrace=xg32
+Also the number of last branch entries (default 64, max. 1024) for instructions or
+transactions events can be specified. e.g.
+
+ --itrace=il10
+ --itrace=xl10
+
+Note that last branch entries are cleared for each sample, so there is no overlap
+from one sample to the next.
+
To disable trace decoding entirely, use the option --no-itrace.
@@ -749,3 +764,32 @@ perf inject also accepts the --itrace option in which case tracing data is
removed and replaced with the synthesized events. e.g.
perf inject --itrace -i perf.data -o perf.data.new
+
+Below is an example of using Intel PT with autofdo. It requires autofdo
+(https://github.com/google/autofdo) and gcc version 5. The bubble
+sort example is from the AutoFDO tutorial (https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/AutoFDO/Tutorial)
+amended to take the number of elements as a parameter.
+
+ $ gcc-5 -O3 sort.c -o sort_optimized
+ $ ./sort_optimized 30000
+ Bubble sorting array of 30000 elements
+ 2254 ms
+
+ $ cat ~/.perfconfig
+ [intel-pt]
+ mispred-all
+
+ $ perf record -e intel_pt//u ./sort 3000
+ Bubble sorting array of 3000 elements
+ 58 ms
+ [ perf record: Woken up 2 times to write data ]
+ [ perf record: Captured and wrote 3.939 MB perf.data ]
+ $ perf inject -i perf.data -o inj --itrace=i100usle --strip
+ $ ./create_gcov --binary=./sort --profile=inj --gcov=sort.gcov -gcov_version=1
+ $ gcc-5 -O3 -fauto-profile=sort.gcov sort.c -o sort_autofdo
+ $ ./sort_autofdo 30000
+ Bubble sorting array of 30000 elements
+ 2155 ms
+
+Note there is currently no advantage to using Intel PT instead of LBR, but
+that may change in the future if greater use is made of the data.