Re: [PATCH tip/locking/core v9 4/6] locking/pvqspinlock: Collect slowpath lock statistics

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>]

On Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 11:29:29AM -0500, Waiman Long wrote:
> On 11/02/2015 11:40 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 07:26:35PM -0400, Waiman Long wrote:
> >>This patch enables the accumulation of kicking and waiting related
> >>PV qspinlock statistics when the new QUEUED_LOCK_STAT configuration
> >>option is selected. It also enables the collection of data which
> >>enable us to calculate the kicking and wakeup latencies which have
> >>a heavy dependency on the CPUs being used.
> >>
> >>The statistical counters are per-cpu variables to minimize the
> >>performance overhead in their updates. These counters are exported
> >>via the sysfs filesystem under the /sys/kernel/qlockstat directory.
> >>When the corresponding sysfs files are read, summation and computing
> >>of the required data are then performed.
> >Why did you switch to sysfs? You can create custom debugfs files too.
> 
> I was not aware of that capability. So you mean using debugfs_create_file()
> using custom file_operations. Right? 

Yep.

> That doesn't seem to be easier than
> using sysfs. However, I can use that if you think it is better to use
> debugfs.

Mostly I just wanted to point out that it was possible; you need not
change to sysfs because debugfs lacks the capability.

But now that you ask, I think debugfs might be the better place, such
statistics (and the proposed CONFIG symbol) are purely for debug
purposes, right?