linux/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-bus-event_source-devices-caps
Kan Liang 571d91dcad perf: Add branch stack counters
Currently, the additional information of a branch entry is stored in a
u64 space. With more and more information added, the space is running
out. For example, the information of occurrences of events will be added
for each branch.

Two places were suggested to append the counters.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20230802215814.GH231007@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net/
One place is right after the flags of each branch entry. It changes the
existing struct perf_branch_entry. The later ARCH specific
implementation has to be really careful to consistently pick
the right struct.
The other place is right after the entire struct perf_branch_stack.
The disadvantage is that the pointer of the extra space has to be
recorded. The common interface perf_sample_save_brstack() has to be
updated.

The latter is much straightforward, and should be easily understood and
maintained. It is implemented in the patch.

Add a new branch sample type, PERF_SAMPLE_BRANCH_COUNTERS, to indicate
the event which is recorded in the branch info.

The "u64 counters" may store the occurrences of several events. The
information regarding the number of events/counters and the width of
each counter should be exposed via sysfs as a reference for the perf
tool. Define the branch_counter_nr and branch_counter_width ABI here.
The support will be implemented later in the Intel-specific patch.

Suggested-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20231025201626.3000228-1-kan.liang@linux.intel.com
2023-10-27 15:05:08 +02:00

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What: /sys/bus/event_source/devices/<dev>/caps
Date: May 2022
KernelVersion: 5.19
Contact: Linux kernel mailing list <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Description:
Attribute group to describe the capabilities exposed
for a particular pmu. Each attribute of this group can
expose information specific to a PMU, say pmu_name, so that
userspace can understand some of the feature which the
platform specific PMU supports.
One of the example available capability in supported platform
like Intel is pmu_name, which exposes underlying CPU name known
to the PMU driver.
Example output in powerpc:
grep . /sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu/caps/*
/sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu/caps/pmu_name:POWER9
The "branch_counter_nr" in the supported platform exposes the
maximum number of counters which can be shown in the u64 counters
of PERF_SAMPLE_BRANCH_COUNTERS, while the "branch_counter_width"
exposes the width of each counter. Both of them can be used by
the perf tool to parse the logged counters in each branch.