How to Profile a C program in Linux using GNU gprof

1. How do I profile a program in Linux?
2. How does Gprof work?
3. What is perf tool?
4. What are profiling tools?
5. How do you generate GMON?
6. How do I read GMON files?
7. What is Mcount?
8. How do you read PERF report output?
9. How do you analyze perf data?
10. What does perf do in Linux?
11. What are profiling techniques?
12. How do you code a profile?
13. What are the different types of profiling?

How do I profile a program in Linux?

Using gprof to profile your applications requires the following steps:

1. Compile and link the application with -pg option.
2. Execute the application to generate a profile data file, default file name is gmon. out.
3. Run gprof command to analyze the profile data.

How does Gprof work?

Gprof works by automatically instrumenting your code during compilation, and then sampling the application's program counter during execution. Sampling data is saved in a file, typically named gmon. out, which can then be read by the gprof command.

What is perf tool?

perf (sometimes called perf_events or perf tools, originally Performance Counters for Linux, PCL) is a performance analyzing tool in Linux, available from Linux kernel version 2.6. 31 in 2009.

What are profiling tools?

A profiling tool is important for performing analysis of the source and target data structures for data integration, whether the transformation will be performed in a batch or real-time environment.

How do you generate GMON?

It can be done by running the gprof command with the -c option on the call graph profile file (gmon. out by default) to generate a file (gprof. remote by default), which can then be processed on a remote machine.

How do I read GMON files?

1 Answer. gprof is the tool that reads a gmon. out file and displays information from it.

What is Mcount?

The mcount routine, included in the profiling library, is responsible for recording in an in-memory call graph table both its parent routine (the child) and its parent's parent. This is typically done by examining the stack frame to find both the address of the child, and the return address in the original parent.

How do you read PERF report output?

perf-report(1) — Linux manual page

1. NAME top. perf-report - Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display the profile.
2. SYNOPSIS top. perf report [-i <file> | --input=file]
3. DESCRIPTION top. This command displays the performance counter profile information recorded via perf record.
4. OPTIONS top. ...
5. OVERHEAD CALCULATION top. ...
6. SEE ALSO top. ...
7. COLOPHON top.

How do you analyze perf data?

The first step is handled by the perf record command. This command runs the program to be analyzed, collects profile data and stores the profile data into a file named perf. data (the default file name). The second step is handled by the perf report and perf annotate commands.

What does perf do in Linux?

Perf is a profiler tool for Linux 2.6+ based systems that abstracts away CPU hardware differences in Linux performance measurements and presents a simple commandline interface. Perf is based on the perf_events interface exported by recent versions of the Linux kernel.

What are profiling techniques?

Offender profiling (also known as psychological profiling) refers to a set of investigative techniques used by the police to try to identify perpetrators of serious crime. It involves working out the characteristics of an offender by examining the characteristics of the crime scene and the crime itself.

How do you code a profile?

To profile your code and improve its performance, use this general process:

1. Run the Profiler on your code.
2. Review the profile summary results.
3. Investigate functions and individual lines of code. ...
4. Save the profiling results.
5. Implement potential performance improvements in your code. ...
6. Save the files, and run clear all .

What are the different types of profiling?

There are four main types of nomothetic profiling: criminal investigative analysis (CIA), diagnostic evaluation (DE), investigative psychology (IP), and geographic profiling. 1. The FBI's profiling method, CIA, is the most commonly known nomothetic method of criminal profiling.