perf tools: Make perf.data more self-descriptive (v8)

The goal of this patch is to include more information about the host
environment into the perf.data so it is more self-descriptive. Overtime,
profiles are captured on various machines and it becomes hard to track
what was recorded, on what machine and when.

This patch provides a way to solve this by extending the perf.data file
with basic information about the host machine. To add those extensions,
we leverage the feature bits capabilities of the perf.data format.  The
change is backward compatible with existing perf.data files.

We define the following useful new extensions:
 - HEADER_HOSTNAME: the hostname
 - HEADER_OSRELEASE: the kernel release number
 - HEADER_ARCH: the hw architecture
 - HEADER_CPUDESC: generic CPU description
 - HEADER_NRCPUS: number of online/avail cpus
 - HEADER_CMDLINE: perf command line
 - HEADER_VERSION: perf version
 - HEADER_TOPOLOGY: cpu topology
 - HEADER_EVENT_DESC: full event description (attrs)
 - HEADER_CPUID: easy-to-parse low level CPU identication

The small granularity for the entries is to make it easier to extend
without breaking backward compatiblity. Many entries are provided as
ASCII strings.

Perf report/script have been modified to print the basic information as
easy-to-parse ASCII strings. Extended information about CPU and NUMA
topology may be requested with the -I option.

Thanks to David Ahern for reviewing and testing the many versions of
this patch.

 $ perf report --stdio
 # ========
 # captured on : Mon Sep 26 15:22:14 2011
 # hostname : quad
 # os release : 3.1.0-rc4-tip
 # perf version : 3.1.0-rc4
 # arch : x86_64
 # nrcpus online : 4
 # nrcpus avail : 4
 # cpudesc : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
 # cpuid : GenuineIntel,6,15,11
 # total memory : 8105360 kB
 # cmdline : /home/eranian/perfmon/official/tip/build/tools/perf/perf record date
 # event : name = cycles, type = 0, config = 0x0, config1 = 0x0, config2 = 0x0, excl_usr = 0, excl_kern = 0, id = { 29, 30, 31,
 # HEADER_CPU_TOPOLOGY info available, use -I to display
 # HEADER_NUMA_TOPOLOGY info available, use -I to display
 # ========
 #
 ...

 $ perf report --stdio -I
 # ========
 # captured on : Mon Sep 26 15:22:14 2011
 # hostname : quad
 # os release : 3.1.0-rc4-tip
 # perf version : 3.1.0-rc4
 # arch : x86_64
 # nrcpus online : 4
 # nrcpus avail : 4
 # cpudesc : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
 # cpuid : GenuineIntel,6,15,11
 # total memory : 8105360 kB
 # cmdline : /home/eranian/perfmon/official/tip/build/tools/perf/perf record date
 # event : name = cycles, type = 0, config = 0x0, config1 = 0x0, config2 = 0x0, excl_usr = 0, excl_kern = 0, id = { 29, 30, 31,
 # sibling cores   : 0-3
 # sibling threads : 0
 # sibling threads : 1
 # sibling threads : 2
 # sibling threads : 3
 # node0 meminfo  : total = 8320608 kB, free = 7571024 kB
 # node0 cpu list : 0-3
 # ========
 #
 ...

Reviewed-by: David Ahern <dsahern@gmail.com>
Tested-by: David Ahern <dsahern@gmail.com>
Cc: David Ahern <dsahern@gmail.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20110930134040.GA5575@quad
Signed-off-by: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
[ committer notes: Use --show-info in the tools as was in the docs, rename
  perf_header_fprintf_info to perf_file_section__fprintf_info, fixup
  conflict with f69b64f7 "perf: Support setting the disassembler style" ]
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-script.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-script.txt
index db017867d9e..dec87ecb530 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-script.txt
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-script.txt
@@ -188,6 +188,13 @@ OPTIONS
 	CPUs are specified with -: 0-2. Default is to report samples on all
 	CPUs.
 
+-I::
+--show-info::
+	Display extended information about the perf.data file. This adds
+	information which may be very large and thus may clutter the display.
+	It currently includes: cpu and numa topology of the host system.
+	It can only be used with the perf script report mode.
+
 SEE ALSO
 --------
 linkperf:perf-record[1], linkperf:perf-script-perl[1],