From: Juri Lelli When FUNCTION_GRAPH_TRACER is enabled, ftrace can profile kernel functions and print basic statistics about them. Unfortunately, running stddev calculation is wrong. This patch corrects it implementing Welford’s method: s^2 = 1 / (n * (n-1)) * (n * \Sum (x_i)^2 - (\Sum x_i)^2) . Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1371031398-24048-1-git-send-email-juri.lelli@gmail.com Cc: Frederic Weisbecker Cc: Ingo Molnar Signed-off-by: Juri Lelli Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt --- kernel/trace/ftrace.c | 10 ++++++++-- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/kernel/trace/ftrace.c b/kernel/trace/ftrace.c index 800a8a2..26e1910 100644 --- a/kernel/trace/ftrace.c +++ b/kernel/trace/ftrace.c @@ -641,12 +641,18 @@ static int function_stat_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v) if (rec->counter <= 1) stddev = 0; else { - stddev = rec->time_squared - rec->counter * avg * avg; + /* + * Apply Welford's method: + * s^2 = 1 / (n * (n-1)) * (n * \Sum (x_i)^2 - (\Sum x_i)^2) + */ + stddev = rec->counter * rec->time_squared - + rec->time * rec->time; + /* * Divide only 1000 for ns^2 -> us^2 conversion. * trace_print_graph_duration will divide 1000 again. */ - do_div(stddev, (rec->counter - 1) * 1000); + do_div(stddev, rec->counter * (rec->counter - 1) * 1000); } trace_seq_init(&s); -- 1.7.10.4