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authorTom Zanussi <zanussi@kernel.org>2020-10-04 17:14:06 -0500
committerSteven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>2020-10-05 19:32:18 -0400
commitbd82631d7ccdc894af2738e47abcba2cb6e7dea9 (patch)
tree126830cac997b235cc18f4cb7b6e09236ca0bbb0 /Documentation/trace
parent63a1e5de3006f4ad713e4d72bcb404d0301e853d (diff)
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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>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/trace')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/trace/events.rst15
-rw-r--r--Documentation/trace/histogram.rst18
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::