Re: [PATCH] perf tools: add support for lipfm4

From: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
To: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>,
	Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>,
	Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
	Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>,
	Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>,
	Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>,
	Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>,
	Martin KaFai Lau <kafai@fb.com>, Yonghong Song <yhs@fb.com>,
	Andrii Nakryiko <andriin@fb.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Igor Lubashev <ilubashe@akamai.com>,
	Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@linux.intel.com>,
	Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
	Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>,
	Jiwei Sun <jiwei.sun@windriver.com>,
	yuzhoujian <yuzhoujian@didichuxing.com>,
	Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>,
	Jin Yao <yao.jin@linux.intel.com>, Leo Yan <leo.yan@linaro.org>,
	John Garry <john.garry@huawei.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	netdev@vger.kernel.org, bpf@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] perf tools: add support for lipfm4
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 12:32:26 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAP-5=fXYMTT7-iiaacO1VF0rRSO6t9W0a5edkiEwdZMYBcrtpQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200311161320.GA254105@krava>

On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 9:13 AM Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 02:39:23PM -0700, Stephane Eranian wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 12:59 PM Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 11:50:03AM -0700, Ian Rogers wrote:
> > > > This patch links perf with the libpfm4 library.
> > > > This library contains all the hardware event tables for all
> > > > processors supported by perf_events. This is a helper library
> > > > that help convert from a symbolic event name to the event
> > > > encoding required by the underlying kernel interface. This
> > > > library is open-source and available from: http://perfmon2.sf.net.
> > >
> > > For most CPUs the builtin perf JSON event support should make
> > > this redundant.
> > >
> > We decided to post this patch to propose an alternative to the JSON
> > file approach. It could be an option during the build.
> > The libpfm4 library has been around for 15 years now. Therefore, it
> > supports a lot of processors core and uncore and it  is very portable.
> > The key value add I see is that this is a library that can be, and has
> > been, used by tool developers directly in their apps. It can
> > work with more than Linux perf_events interface. It is not tied to the
> > interface. It has well defined and documented entry points.
> > We do use libpfm4 extensively at Google in both the perf tool and
> > applications. The PAPI toolkit also relies on this library.
> >
> > I don't see this as competing with the JSON approach. It is just an
> > option I'd like to offer to users especially those familiar
> > with it in their apps.
>
> I dont mind having it, in fact I found really old email where I'm
> asking Peter about that ;-) and he wasn't very keen about that:
>   https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1312806326.10488.30.camel@twins/
>
> not sure what was the actual reason at that time and if anything
> changed since.. Peter?
>
> btw I can't apply even that v2 on latest Arnaldo's branch
>
> jirka

Thanks Jiri,

the patches were done on tip.git/master, perhaps there is a conflict
with the Documents Makefile due to adding better man page dates? I'll
try to repro building on
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/acme/linux.git/ on the
perf/core branch unless you  have a different suggestion? I also
noticed a warning crept into the Makefile.config in the v2 patch set
that should be removed.

Ian