Resolving symbol information into meaningful function names in tprof

Using gensyms, trace, and dbx commands in tprof online and offline
modes

tprof is a command line utility which provides features to identify and
analyze performance bottlenecks. The tprof utility runs a given
workload using the IBM® AIX® trace utility and specifies the time spent in
each process, and within each process, the time spent in each subroutine. This
article explains the way in which users can translate the unresolved address in a
tprof profile report to meaningful function addresses using gensyms
and dbx commands.

tprof modes

tprof command can run in the following modes:

Real-time or online mode

when tprof is run with the -x flag without -A,
tprof runs in the real-time mode. In this
mode, tprof starts the AIX trace utility in the background, and
processes the trace data as it gets generated.

When the program being profiled ends, tprof collects the symbol
information and generates the profile report. In this mode, there are no additional
files generated by tprof.

Note: Symbols are the addresses of the variables and functions in an
object file.

Automated offline

when tprof is run with the -x flag and the -A
flag, tprof runs in the automated offline mode. In this mode,
tprof starts the the AIX trace utility and logs the trace data into
a file. After the trace data is collected, symbol information is also collected and
written into the symbol file. tprof reads the data from the log file
and processes the data to generate the report. In this mode, tprof
generates .syms and .trc files. These files can be
used for post processing.

Postprocessing

In this mode, tprof post processes the .trc and
.syms files. The .trc and .syms files can be generated when
tprof is run in an automated offline mode or can be generated using the
trace and gensyms command. tprof
generates the profile report by post processing the required files.

Address
resolution

tprof reads the symbols from the binary files to resolve the IAR into
human-readable function names. In case of automated offline mode, this information
is saved in a .syms file. In some cases, tprof fails
to resolve the IAR (address) into human-readable function names, for example, when
the binary path is not exported, tprof fails to resolve the address,
and instead, displays the address in hex values in the report.

The following table provides the methods that can help in resolving the hex values in
the generated report.

Table 1. tprof modes

The following prerequisites are expected to resolve the symbol
information:

• Knowledge of dbx
• Knowledge of
  generating the .lst files during compilation

Sample code of the test binary

void  testfunc() {
        for(int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++);
}
void testfunc1() {
        for(int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++);
}
int main() {
        while(1) {
                testfunc();
                testfunc1();
        }
}

As part of the test, the sample code is compiled and is placed in
/home/tproftest. The binary is
ran from the same location.

tprof is run from a different location, say
/home/tproftest/reports.

Real-time / Online mode address resolution using
dbx

Run the tprof command using the following parameters:

				tprof -ukes -x sleep 30

Experts for sleep.prof (report generated by
tprof)

Summary section

From the report, we can understand that there are two instances of ryes
processes running. The combined processor utilization for two instances is about
72.77 % for samples collected for 30 seconds. Out of 72.77%, 0.10% is of kernel and
72.77% is of user space.

Per process report

Process section

User space report

In this report, it is seen that none of the addresses got resolved for the
ryes process, and users can use
dbx and the .lst file to
resolve the address.

Perform the following steps to resolve addresses using dbx:

1. Run the following command as a debugee using dbx.
    

   				# dbx ./ryes 
   				      Type 'help' for help. 
   				      reading symbolic information ...warning: no source compiled with -g.

2. Get the address information using the listi subcommand in
   dbx.
    

   				(dbx) listi 0x1000039C 0x1000039c 
   				(testfunc+0x1c) 80610044 lwz r3,0x44(r1) 
   				(dbx) listi 0x100003FC 0x100003fc
   				(testfunc1+0x1c) 80610044 lwz r3,0x44(r1)

   dbx shows that
   0x100003fc resolves to
   testfunc with offset
   0x1c and
   0x100003fc resolves to
   testfunc1 with offset
   0x1c.

3. Identify the line numbers in the source file for the given address using the
   .lst files

   Excerpts of the .lst file

   
   Source file section
   

   					>>>>> SOURCE SECTION <<<<<
   					1 |
   					2 | void  testfunc() {
   					3 |         for(int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++);
   					4 |
   					5 | }
   					6 |
   					7 |
   					8 | void testfunc1() {
   					9 |         for(int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++);
   					10 |
   					11 | }
   					12 |
   					13 | int main() {
   					14 |         while(1) {
   					15 |
   					16 |                 testfunc();
   					17 |
   					18 |                 testfunc1();
   					19 |         }
   					20 |
   					21 |
   					22 |
   					23 | }

   
   Function testfunc
   

   	 | 000000                    PDEF     	 testfunc
       2|                          PROC
       0| 000000 stwu           	9421FFB0   	1     ST4U     	gr1,#stack(gr1,-80)=gr1
       0|                          CL.13:
       3| 000004 addi            	38600000   	1     LI        gr3=0
       3| 000008 stw             	90610044   	1     ST4A      i(gr1,68)=gr3
       3| 00000C addis       		3C800099  	1     LIU       gr4=153
       3| 000010 addi         		38849680   	1     AI        gr4=gr4,-27008
       3| 000014 cmpw      		7C032000  	1     C4       	cr0=gr3,gr4
       3| 000018 bc            	40800020   	1     BF        CL.17,cr0,0x1/lt,
       3|                          CL.16:
       3| 00001C lwz         		80610044   	1     L4A      	gr3=i(gr1,68)
       3| 000020 addi       		38630001   	2     AI        gr3=gr3,1
       3| 000024 stw         		90610044   	1     ST4A      i(gr1,68)=gr3
       3| 000028 addis     		3C800099   	1     LIU       gr4=153
       3| 00002C addi      		38849680   	1     AI        gr4=gr4,-27008
       3| 000030 cmpw    		    7C032000   	1     C4        cr0=gr3,gr4
       3| 000034 bc         		4180FFE8   	1     BT        CL.16,cr0,0x1/lt,
       3|                          CL.17:
       5| 000038 b          		48000004   	0     B         CL.18,-1
       5|                          CL.14:
       5|                          CL.18:
       5| 00003C addi    		    38210050   	1     AI        gr1=gr1,80
       5| 000040 bclr     		    4E800020   	0     BA       	lr

   
   Function testfunc1
   

   	 | 000000                PDEF         testfunc1
       8|                      PROC
       0| 000060 stwu     		9421FFB0   	1     	ST4U      	gr1,#stack(gr1,-80)=gr1
       0|                      CL.7:
       9| 000064 addi     		38600000   	1     	LI        	gr3=0
       9| 000068 stw      		90610044   	1     	ST4A   	   	i(gr1,68)=gr3
       9| 00006C addis   		3C800099  	1     	LIU      	gr4=153
       9| 000070 addi     		38849680   	1     	AI        	gr4=gr4,-27008
       9| 000074 cmpw     		7C032000  	1     	C4       	cr0=gr3,gr4
       9| 000078 bc       		40800020   	1     	BF        	CL.11,cr0,0x1/lt,
       9|                      CL.10:
       9| 00007C lwz      		80610044   	1     	L4A       	gr3=i(gr1,68)
       9| 000080 addi     		38630001   	2     	AI        	gr3=gr3,1
       9| 000084 stw      		90610044   	1     	ST4A      	i(gr1,68)=gr3
       9| 000088 addis    		3C800099  	1     	LIU       	gr4=153
       9| 00008C addi     		38849680   	1     	AI        	gr4=gr4,-27008

Using the listi subcommand in dbx, get the line number of
the instruction from the .lst file.

1. Get the offset of the instruction using listi subcommand in dbx.
    

   				(dbx) listi 0x1000039C
   				0x1000039c (testfunc+0x1c) 80610044 lwz r3,0x44(r1)

   From the output of the listi subcommand
   (testfunc+0x1c), you can see that the offset of the
   instruction is 0x1c. This offset is used to identify the line
   number of the code in the source file.

2. Get the start address of the function from the .lst file

   From the excerpts of
   Function testfunc of the .lst file, you can notice that the start address of
   testfunc is
   000000.

   	| 000000                    PDEF     	 testfunc
       2|                          PROC
       0| 000000 stwu           	9421FFB0   	1     ST4U     	 gr1,#stack(gr1,-80)=gr1
       0|                          CL.13:
       3| 000004 addi            	38600000   	1     LI         gr3=0

3. Get the line number.

   By adding the offset of the instruction to the start
   address of the function, we get 0x1c which maps to the following content in the .lst file.

   							3| 00001C lwz    80610044    1   L4A   gr3=i(gr1,68)

   In the above code “3” refers to the line number in the source section of the .lst file.

   Similarly, 0x100003FC maps to testfunc1, line number 9 of the
   source file.

   							9| 00007C lwz    80610044    1   L4A   gr3=i(gr1,68)

Resolve symbols in post processing

The -A option of tprof generates .trc and
.syms files in addition to the .prof file. By
regenerating the missing symbols using gensyms for the
given binary you can resolve unresolved symbols into meaningful function names.

Perform the following steps to resolve symbols using
gensyms:

1. Collect symbols for the ryes process using
   gensyms.
   
    

    gensyms -k /unix -s -b ./ryes > ryes.syms

2. Run tprof to post process the trace files.
   
    

    tprof -ukes -r ryes

   Excerpts of report file

   User Process ============= ./ryes Profile: ./ryes		% ===== 72.68
   Total % For All Processes (./ryes) = 72.68
   Subroutine ========== .testfunc .testfunc1	% ====== 36.62 36.05	Source ====== ryes.c ryes.c

Collecting traces for tprof post processing

Perform the following steps to collect trace file required for post processing mode
in tprof.

1. Run the trace command.
   
    

   			/usr/bin/trace -ad -M -L 402366873 -T 500000 -j
   			00A,001,002,003,38F,005,006,134,210,139,5A2,5A5,465,234,5D8 -o ryes.trc

   Alternatively, run the following command to get the same results.

    /usr/bin/trace -ad -M -L 402366873 -T 500000 -J tprof -o ryes.trc

2. Turn on trace collection using the following command:

    

   				trcon

3. Run the workload.
4. Stop trace collection using the following command.

    

   				trcstop

5. Generate symbols for the process using the following command.

    

   			gensym -k -s -b ./ryes > ryes.syms

6. Post process the trace file using the following command.

    

   			tprof -ukes -r ryes

Refer to IBM Knowledge Center for information on the following commands:

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