xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/profil.2 (revision 3b01aba77a7a698587faaae455bbfe740923c1f5)
1.\"	$NetBSD: profil.2,v 1.6 2000/10/24 19:32:34 erh Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1993
4.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
7.\" Donn Seeley of BSDI.
8.\"
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19.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
20.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
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37.\"	@(#)profil.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
38.\"
39.Dd June 4, 1993
40.Dt PROFIL 2
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm profil
44.Nd control process profiling
45.Sh LIBRARY
46.Lb libc
47.Sh SYNOPSIS
48.Ft int
49.Fn profil "char *samples" "size_t size" "u_long offset" "u_int scale"
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51The
52.Fn profil
53function enables or disables
54program counter profiling of the current process.
55If profiling is enabled,
56then at every clock tick,
57the kernel updates an appropriate count in the
58.Fa samples
59buffer.
60.Pp
61The buffer
62.Fa samples
63contains
64.Fa size
65bytes and is divided into
66a series of 16-bit bins.
67Each bin counts the number of times the program counter
68was in a particular address range in the process
69when a clock tick occurred while profiling was enabled.
70For a given program counter address,
71the number of the corresponding bin is given
72by the relation:
73.Bd -literal -offset indent
74[(pc - offset) / 2] * scale / 65536
75.Ed
76.Pp
77The
78.Fa offset
79parameter is the lowest address at which
80the kernel takes program counter samples.
81The
82.Fa scale
83parameter ranges from 1 to 65536 and
84can be used to change the span of the bins.
85A scale of 65536 maps each bin to 2 bytes of address range;
86a scale of 32768 gives 4 bytes, 16384 gives 8 bytes and so on.
87Intermediate values provide approximate intermediate ranges.
88A
89.Fa scale
90value of 0 disables profiling.
91.Sh RETURN VALUES
92If the
93.Fa scale
94value is nonzero and the buffer
95.Fa samples
96contains an illegal address,
97.Fn profil
98returns \-1,
99profiling is terminated and
100.Va errno
101is set appropriately.
102Otherwise
103.Fn profil
104returns 0.
105.Sh FILES
106.Bl -tag -width /usr/lib/gcrt0.o -compact
107.It Pa /usr/lib/gcrt0.o
108profiling C run-time startup file
109.It Pa gmon.out
110conventional name for profiling output file.  This may be different if the PROFDIR environment variable is set.
111.El
112.Sh ERRORS
113The following error may be reported:
114.Bl -tag -width Er
115.It Bq Er EFAULT
116The buffer
117.Fa samples
118contains an invalid address.
119.El
120.Sh SEE ALSO
121.Xr gprof 1
122.Xr moncontrol 3
123.\" .Sh HISTORY
124.\" wish I knew...  probably v7.
125.Sh BUGS
126This routine should be named
127.Fn profile .
128.Pp
129The
130.Fa samples
131argument should really be a vector of type
132.Fa "unsigned short" .
133.Pp
134The format of the gmon.out file is undocumented.
135