Re: [RFC PATCH v4 3/3] bpf: Introduce function for outputing data to perf event

[Alexei Starovoitov <ast@plumgrid.com>]

On 7/10/15 3:03 AM, He Kuang wrote:
> There're scenarios that we need an eBPF program to record not only
> kprobe point args, but also the PMU counters, time latencies or the
> number of cache misses between two probe points and other information
> when the probe point is entered.
>
> This patch adds a new trace event to establish infrastruction for bpf to
> output data to perf. Userspace perf tools can detect and use this event
> as using the existing tracepoint events.
>
> New bpf trace event entry in debugfs:
>
>       /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/bpf/bpf_output_data
>
> Userspace perf tools detect the new tracepoint event as:
>
>       bpf:bpf_output_data                          [Tracepoint event]

Nice! This approach looks cleanest so far.

> +TRACE_EVENT(bpf_output_data,
> +
> +	TP_PROTO(u64 *src, int len),
> +
> +	TP_ARGS(src, len),
> +
> +	TP_STRUCT__entry(
> +		__dynamic_array(u64,		buf,		len)
> +	),
> +
> +	TP_fast_assign(
> +		memcpy(__get_dynamic_array(buf), src, len * sizeof(u64));

may be make it 'u8' array? The extra multiply and...

> +static u64 bpf_output_trace_data(u64 r1, u64 r2, u64 r3, u64 r4, u64 r5)
> +{
> +	void *src = (void *) (long) r1;
> +	int size = (int) r2;
> +
> +	trace_bpf_output_data(src, size / sizeof(u64));

.. and this silent round down could be confusing to use.
With array of u8, the program can push any structured data into it
and let user space interpret it.