1LLVM-EXEGESIS(1)                     LLVM                     LLVM-EXEGESIS(1)
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NAME

6       llvm-exegesis - LLVM Machine Instruction Benchmark
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SYNOPSIS

9       llvm-exegesis [options]
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DESCRIPTION

12       llvm-exegesis is a benchmarking tool that uses information available in
13       LLVM to measure host machine instruction characteristics like  latency,
14       throughput, or port decomposition.
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16       Given an LLVM opcode name and a benchmarking mode, llvm-exegesis gener‐
17       ates a code snippet that makes execution as serial (resp. as  parallel)
18       as  possible so that we can measure the latency (resp. inverse through‐
19       put/uop decomposition) of the instruction.  The code snippet is  jitted
20       and  executed on the host subtarget. The time taken (resp. resource us‐
21       age) is measured using hardware performance  counters.  The  result  is
22       printed out as YAML to the standard output.
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24       The  main goal of this tool is to automatically (in)validate the LLVM's
25       TableDef scheduling models. To that end, we also  provide  analysis  of
26       the results.
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28       llvm-exegesis can also benchmark arbitrary user-provided code snippets.
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EXAMPLE 1: BENCHMARKING INSTRUCTIONS

31       Assume  you  have an X86-64 machine. To measure the latency of a single
32       instruction, run:
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34          $ llvm-exegesis -mode=latency -opcode-name=ADD64rr
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36       Measuring the uop decomposition or inverse throughput of an instruction
37       works similarly:
38
39          $ llvm-exegesis -mode=uops -opcode-name=ADD64rr
40          $ llvm-exegesis -mode=inverse_throughput -opcode-name=ADD64rr
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42       The  output  is a YAML document (the default is to write to stdout, but
43       you can redirect the output to a file using -benchmarks-file):
44
45          ---
46          key:
47            opcode_name:     ADD64rr
48            mode:            latency
49            config:          ''
50          cpu_name:        haswell
51          llvm_triple:     x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
52          num_repetitions: 10000
53          measurements:
54            - { key: latency, value: 1.0058, debug_string: '' }
55          error:           ''
56          info:            'explicit self cycles, selecting one aliasing configuration.
57          Snippet:
58          ADD64rr R8, R8, R10
59          '
60          ...
61
62       To measure the latency of all instructions for the  host  architecture,
63       run:
64
65          #!/bin/bash
66          readonly INSTRUCTIONS=$(($(grep INSTRUCTION_LIST_END build/lib/Target/X86/X86GenInstrInfo.inc | cut -f2 -d=) - 1))
67          for INSTRUCTION in $(seq 1 ${INSTRUCTIONS});
68          do
69            ./build/bin/llvm-exegesis -mode=latency -opcode-index=${INSTRUCTION} | sed -n '/---/,$p'
70          done
71
72       FIXME: Provide an llvm-exegesis option to test all instructions.
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EXAMPLE 2: BENCHMARKING A CUSTOM CODE SNIPPET

75       To  measure the latency/uops of a custom piece of code, you can specify
76       the snippets-file option (- reads from standard input).
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78          $ echo "vzeroupper" | llvm-exegesis -mode=uops -snippets-file=-
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80       Real-life code  snippets  typically  depend  on  registers  or  memory.
81       llvm-exegesis checks the liveliness of registers (i.e. any register use
82       has a corresponding def or is a "live in"). If your code depends on the
83       value of some registers, you have two options:
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85       • Mark the register as requiring a definition. llvm-exegesis will auto‐
86         matically assign a value to the register. This can be done using  the
87         directive   LLVM-EXEGESIS-DEFREG   <reg   name>   <hex_value>,  where
88         <hex_value> is a bit pattern used to fill <reg_name>. If  <hex_value>
89         is smaller than the register width, it will be sign-extended.
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91       • Mark  the register as a "live in". llvm-exegesis will benchmark using
92         whatever value was in this registers on entry. This can be done using
93         the directive LLVM-EXEGESIS-LIVEIN <reg name>.
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95       For  example,  the following code snippet depends on the values of XMM1
96       (which will be set by the tool) and the memory  buffer  passed  in  RDI
97       (live in).
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99          # LLVM-EXEGESIS-LIVEIN RDI
100          # LLVM-EXEGESIS-DEFREG XMM1 42
101          vmulps        (%rdi), %xmm1, %xmm2
102          vhaddps       %xmm2, %xmm2, %xmm3
103          addq $0x10, %rdi
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EXAMPLE 3: ANALYSIS

106       Assuming  you have a set of benchmarked instructions (either latency or
107       uops) as YAML in file /tmp/benchmarks.yaml, you can analyze the results
108       using the following command:
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110            $ llvm-exegesis -mode=analysis \
111          -benchmarks-file=/tmp/benchmarks.yaml \
112          -analysis-clusters-output-file=/tmp/clusters.csv \
113          -analysis-inconsistencies-output-file=/tmp/inconsistencies.html
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115       This  will  group  the instructions into clusters with the same perfor‐
116       mance characteristics. The clusters will be written out  to  /tmp/clus‐
117       ters.csv in the following format:
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119          cluster_id,opcode_name,config,sched_class
120          ...
121          2,ADD32ri8_DB,,WriteALU,1.00
122          2,ADD32ri_DB,,WriteALU,1.01
123          2,ADD32rr,,WriteALU,1.01
124          2,ADD32rr_DB,,WriteALU,1.00
125          2,ADD32rr_REV,,WriteALU,1.00
126          2,ADD64i32,,WriteALU,1.01
127          2,ADD64ri32,,WriteALU,1.01
128          2,MOVSX64rr32,,BSWAP32r_BSWAP64r_MOVSX64rr32,1.00
129          2,VPADDQYrr,,VPADDBYrr_VPADDDYrr_VPADDQYrr_VPADDWYrr_VPSUBBYrr_VPSUBDYrr_VPSUBQYrr_VPSUBWYrr,1.02
130          2,VPSUBQYrr,,VPADDBYrr_VPADDDYrr_VPADDQYrr_VPADDWYrr_VPSUBBYrr_VPSUBDYrr_VPSUBQYrr_VPSUBWYrr,1.01
131          2,ADD64ri8,,WriteALU,1.00
132          2,SETBr,,WriteSETCC,1.01
133          ...
134
135       llvm-exegesis  will also analyze the clusters to point out inconsisten‐
136       cies in the scheduling information. The output is an html file. For ex‐
137       ample, /tmp/inconsistencies.html will contain messages like the follow‐
138       ing : [image]
139
140       Note that the  scheduling  class  names  will  be  resolved  only  when
141       llvm-exegesis is compiled in debug mode, else only the class id will be
142       shown. This does not invalidate any of the analysis results though.
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OPTIONS

145       -help  Print a summary of command line options.
146
147       -opcode-index=<LLVM opcode index>
148              Specify the opcode to measure, by index. See example 1  for  de‐
149              tails.   Either  opcode-index, opcode-name or snippets-file must
150              be set.
151
152       -opcode-name=<opcode name 1>,<opcode name 2>,...
153              Specify the opcode to measure, by name. Several opcodes  can  be
154              specified  as a comma-separated list. See example 1 for details.
155              Either opcode-index, opcode-name or snippets-file must be set.
156
157              -snippets-file=<filename>
158                     Specify the custom code snippet to measure. See example 2
159                     for  details.   Either opcode-index, opcode-name or snip‐
160                     pets-file must be set.
161
162       -mode=[latency|uops|inverse_throughput|analysis]
163              Specify the run mode. Note that if you pick analysis  mode,  you
164              also need to specify at least one of the -analysis-clusters-out‐
165              put-file= and -analysis-inconsistencies-output-file=.
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167       -num-repetitions=<Number of repetition>
168              Specify the number of repetitions of the  asm  snippet.   Higher
169              values  lead  to  more  accurate  measurements  but lengthen the
170              benchmark.
171
172       -benchmarks-file=</path/to/file>
173              File  to  read  (analysis  mode)  or   write   (latency/uops/in‐
174              verse_throughput  modes)  benchmark results. "-" uses stdin/std‐
175              out.
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177       -analysis-clusters-output-file=</path/to/file>
178              If provided, write the analysis clusters as CSV  to  this  file.
179              "-" prints to stdout. By default, this analysis is not run.
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181       -analysis-inconsistencies-output-file=</path/to/file>
182              If  non-empty,  write  inconsistencies  found during analysis to
183              this file. - prints to stdout. By default, this analysis is  not
184              run.
185
186       -analysis-clustering=[dbscan,naive]
187              Specify  the clustering algorithm to use. By default DBSCAN will
188              be used.  Naive clustering algorithm is better for doing further
189              work  on  the  -analysis-inconsistencies-output-file= output, it
190              will create one cluster per opcode, and check that  the  cluster
191              is stable (all points are neighbours).
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193       -analysis-numpoints=<dbscan numPoints parameter>
194              Specify  the numPoints parameters to be used for DBSCAN cluster‐
195              ing (analysis mode, DBSCAN only).
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197       -analysis-clustering-epsilon=<dbscan epsilon parameter>
198              Specify the epsilon parameter used for clustering  of  benchmark
199              points (analysis mode).
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201       -analysis-inconsistency-epsilon=<epsilon>
202              Specify  the  epsilon  parameter  used for detection of when the
203              cluster is different  from  the  LLVM  schedule  profile  values
204              (analysis mode).
205
206       -analysis-display-unstable-clusters
207              If  there  is more than one benchmark for an opcode, said bench‐
208              marks may end up not being clustered into the  same  cluster  if
209              the  measured  performance characteristics are different. by de‐
210              fault all such opcodes are filtered out.  This flag will instead
211              show only such unstable opcodes.
212
213       -ignore-invalid-sched-class=false
214              If  set,  ignore  instructions  that  do  not have a sched class
215              (class idx = 0).
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217       -mcpu=<cpu name>
218              If set, measure the cpu characteristics using the  counters  for
219              this  CPU.  This  is  useful when creating new sched models (the
220              host CPU is unknown to LLVM).
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222       --dump-object-to-disk=true
223              By default, llvm-exegesis will dump the generated code to a tem‐
224              porary  file  to  enable  code inspection. You may disable it to
225              speed up the execution and save disk space.
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EXIT STATUS

228       llvm-exegesis returns 0 on success.  Otherwise,  an  error  message  is
229       printed to standard error, and the tool returns a non 0 value.
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AUTHOR

232       Maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/).
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235       2003-2021, LLVM Project
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2409                                 2021-07-22                  LLVM-EXEGESIS(1)
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