tracing: Add support for dynamic strings to synthetic events

Currently, sythetic events only support static string fields such as:

  # echo 'test_latency u64 lat; char somename[32]' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/synthetic_events

Which is fine, but wastes a lot of space in the event.

It also prevents the most commonly-defined strings in the existing
trace events e.g. those defined using __string(), from being passed to
synthetic events via the trace() action.

With this change, synthetic events with dynamic fields can be defined:

  # echo 'test_latency u64 lat; char somename[]' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/synthetic_events

And the trace() action can be used to generate events using either
dynamic or static strings:

  # echo 'hist:keys=name:lat=common_timestamp.usecs-$ts0:onmatch(sys.event).test_latency($lat,name)' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events

The synthetic event dynamic strings are implemented in the same way as
the existing __data_loc strings and appear as such in the format file.

[ <rostedt@goodmis.org>: added __set_synth_event_print_fmt() changes:

  I added the following to make it work with trace-cmd. Dynamic strings
  must have __get_str() for events in the print_fmt otherwise it can't be
  parsed correctly. ]

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/cover.1601588066.git.zanussi@kernel.org
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/3ed35b6d0e390f5b94cb4a9ba1cc18f5982ab277.1601848695.git.zanussi@kernel.org

Tested-by: Axel Rasmussen <axelrasmussen@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Tom Zanussi <zanussi@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>

2 files changed, 31 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/trace/events.rst b/Documentation/trace/events.rst
index f792b1959a33..2a5aa48eff6c 100644
--- a/Documentation/trace/events.rst
+++ b/Documentation/trace/events.rst
@@ -589,8 +589,19 @@ name::
         { .type = "int",                .name = "my_int_field" },
   };
 
-See synth_field_size() for available types. If field_name contains [n]
-the field is considered to be an array.
+See synth_field_size() for available types.
+
+If field_name contains [n], the field is considered to be a static array.
+
+If field_names contains[] (no subscript), the field is considered to
+be a dynamic array, which will only take as much space in the event as
+is required to hold the array.
+
+Because space for an event is reserved before assigning field values
+to the event, using dynamic arrays implies that the piecewise
+in-kernel API described below can't be used with dynamic arrays.  The
+other non-piecewise in-kernel APIs can, however, be used with dynamic
+arrays.
 
 If the event is created from within a module, a pointer to the module
 must be passed to synth_event_create().  This will ensure that the
diff --git a/Documentation/trace/histogram.rst b/Documentation/trace/histogram.rst
index 8408670d0328..b573604deabd 100644
--- a/Documentation/trace/histogram.rst
+++ b/Documentation/trace/histogram.rst
@@ -1776,6 +1776,24 @@ consisting of the name of the new event along with one or more
 variables and their types, which can be any valid field type,
 separated by semicolons, to the tracing/synthetic_events file.
 
+See synth_field_size() for available types.
+
+If field_name contains [n], the field is considered to be a static array.
+
+If field_names contains[] (no subscript), the field is considered to
+be a dynamic array, which will only take as much space in the event as
+is required to hold the array.
+
+A string field can be specified using either the static notation:
+
+  char name[32];
+
+Or the dynamic:
+
+  char name[];
+
+The size limit for either is 256.
+
 For instance, the following creates a new event named 'wakeup_latency'
 with 3 fields: lat, pid, and prio.  Each of those fields is simply a
 variable reference to a variable on another event::