perf-stat-hist.8

.TH perf-stat-hist 8  "2014-07-07" "USER COMMANDS"
.SH NAME
perf-stat-hist \- histogram summary of tracepoint values. Uses Linux perf_events.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B perf-stat-hist
[-h] [-b buckets|-P power] [-m max] tracepoint variable [seconds]
.SH DESCRIPTION
This is a proof-of-concept showing in-kernel histograms using Linux perf_events
(aka the "perf" command), on older kernels where perf_events does not have
this native capability.

These histograms show the distribution of variable, allowing details
including multiple modes and outliers to be studied.

This uses multiple counting tracepoints with different filters, one for each
histogram bucket. While this is summarized in-kernel, the use of multiple
tracepoints does add addiitonal overhead. Hopefully, in the
future this this functionality will be provided in an efficient way from
perf_events itself, at which point this tool can be deleted or rewritten.
.SH REQUIREMENTS
Linux perf_events: add linux-tools-common, run "perf", then add any additional
packages it requests. Also uses awk.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\-h
Usage message.
.TP
\-b buckets
Specify a list of bucket points for the histogram as a string (eg, "10 500
1000"). The histogram will include buckets for less-than the minimum, and
greater-than-or-equal-to the maximum.  If a single value is specified, two
statistics only are gathered: for less-than and for greater-than-or-equal-to.
The overhead is relative to the number of buckets, so only specifying a
single value costs the lowest overhead.
.TP
\-P power
Power for power-of histogram. By default, a power-of-4 histogram is created.
This and the \-b option are exclusive.
.TP
\-m max
Max value for power-of histograms.
.TP
tracepoint
Tracepoint specification. Eg, syscalls:sys_enter_read.
.TP
variable
The tracepoint variable name to summarize. To see what are available, cat the
format file under /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/*/*/format.
.TP
seconds
Number of seconds to trace. If not specified, this runs until Ctrl-C.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Trace read() syscalls until Ctrl-C, and show histogram of requested size:
#
.B perf\-stat\-hist syscalls:sys_enter_read count
.TP
Trace read() syscall completions until Ctrl-C, and show histogram of successful returned size:
#
.B perf\-stat\-hist syscalls:sys_exit_read ret
.TP
Trace read() return sizes for 10 seconds, showing histogram:
#
.B perf\-stat\-hist syscalls:sys_exit_read ret 10
.TP
Trace network transmits until Ctrl-C, and show histogram of packet size:
#
.B perf\-stat\-hist net:net_dev_xmit len
.TP
Trace read() return sizes, using a power-of-10 histogram:
.B perf\-stat\-hist \-P 10 syscalls:sys_exit_read ret
.TP
Trace read() return sizes, using a power-of-2 histogram, and a max of 1024:
.B perf\-stat\-hist \-P 2 \-m 1024 syscalls:sys_exit_read ret
.TP
Trace read() return sizes, using the specified bucket points:
.B perf\-stat\-hist \-b """10 50 100 5000""" syscalls:sys_exit_read ret
.TP
Trace read() return sizes, and bifurcate statistics by the value 10:
.B perf-stat-hist \-b 10 syscalls:sys_exit_read ret
.SH FIELDS
.TP
Range
Range of the histogram bucket, in units of the variable specified.
.TP
Count
Number of occurrences (tracepoint events) of the variable in this range.
.TP
Distribution
ASCII histogram representation of the Count column.
.SH OVERHEAD
While the counts are performed in-kernel, there is one tracepoint used per
histogram bucket, so the overheads are higher than usual (relative to the
number of buckets) than function counting using perf stat. The lowest
overhead is when \-b is used to specify one bucket only, bifurcating
statistics.
.SH SOURCE
This is from the perf-tools collection.
.IP
https://github.com/brendangregg/perf-tools
.PP
Also look under the examples directory for a text file containing example
usage, output, and commentary for this tool.
.SH OS
Linux
.SH STABILITY
Unstable - in development.
.SH AUTHOR
Brendan Gregg
.SH SEE ALSO
perf(1)