1PERF-TIMECHART(1) perf Manual PERF-TIMECHART(1)
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6 perf-timechart - Tool to visualize total system behavior during a
7 workload
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11 There are two variants of perf timechart:
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13 'perf timechart record <command>' to record the system level events
14 of an arbitrary workload. By default timechart records only scheduler
15 and CPU events (task switches, running times, CPU power states, etc),
16 but it's possible to record IO (disk, network) activity using -I argument.
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18 'perf timechart' to turn a trace into a Scalable Vector Graphics file,
19 that can be viewed with popular SVG viewers such as 'Inkscape'. Depending
20 on the events in the perf.data file, timechart will contain scheduler/cpu
21 events or IO events.
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23 In IO mode, every bar has two charts: upper and lower.
24 Upper bar shows incoming events (disk reads, ingress network packets).
25 Lower bar shows outgoing events (disk writes, egress network packets).
26 There are also poll bars which show how much time application spent
27 in poll/epoll/select syscalls.
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30 -o, --output=
31 Select the output file (default: output.svg)
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33 -i, --input=
34 Select the input file (default: perf.data unless stdin is a fifo)
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36 -w, --width=
37 Select the width of the SVG file (default: 1000)
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39 -P, --power-only
40 Only output the CPU power section of the diagram
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42 -T, --tasks-only
43 Don’t output processor state transitions
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45 -p, --process
46 Select the processes to display, by name or PID
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48 -f, --force
49 Don’t complain, do it.
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51 --symfs=<directory>
52 Look for files with symbols relative to this directory.
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54 -n, --proc-num
55 Print task info for at least given number of tasks.
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57 -t, --topology
58 Sort CPUs according to topology.
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60 --highlight=<duration_nsecs|task_name>
61 Highlight tasks (using different color) that run more than given
62 duration or tasks with given name. If number is given it’s
63 interpreted as number of nanoseconds. If non-numeric string is
64 given it’s interpreted as task name.
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66 --io-skip-eagain
67 Don’t draw EAGAIN IO events.
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69 --io-min-time=<nsecs>
70 Draw small events as if they lasted min-time. Useful when you need
71 to see very small and fast IO. It’s possible to specify ms or us
72 suffix to specify time in milliseconds or microseconds. Default
73 value is 1ms.
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75 --io-merge-dist=<nsecs>
76 Merge events that are merge-dist nanoseconds apart. Reduces number
77 of figures on the SVG and makes it more render-friendly. It’s
78 possible to specify ms or us suffix to specify time in milliseconds
79 or microseconds. Default value is 1us.
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82 -P, --power-only
83 Record only power-related events
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85 -T, --tasks-only
86 Record only tasks-related events
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88 -I, --io-only
89 Record only io-related events
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91 -g, --callchain
92 Do call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording
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95 $ perf timechart record git pull
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97 [ perf record: Woken up 13 times to write data ]
98 [ perf record: Captured and wrote 4.253 MB perf.data (~185801 samples) ]
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100 $ perf timechart
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102 Written 10.2 seconds of trace to output.svg.
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104 Record system-wide timechart:
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106 $ perf timechart record
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108 then generate timechart and highlight 'gcc' tasks:
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110 $ perf timechart --highlight gcc
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112 Record system-wide IO events:
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114 $ perf timechart record -I
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116 then generate timechart:
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118 $ perf timechart
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121 perf-record(1)
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125perf 11/22/2021 PERF-TIMECHART(1)