RE: precompiled probing scenarios

["Stone, Joshua I" <joshua.i.stone@intel.com>]

On Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:50 PM, David Smith wrote:
> Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
>> kernel.function("*") should match exactly what was there before.
>> Probes on module("*").FOO would be redefined to mean something like
>> "all modules that we know at translation time that *might* exist,
>> that also happen to be *loaded* at run time.  This aspect of wildcard
>> expansion would thus take place at run time rather than translate
>> time.  It just so happens that the same module might probe a greater
>> or lesser number of modules on an actual system.  With that proviso,
>> a script-source-level hash still seems to work.
>[...]
> The hash is computed using the following data:
>[...]
> - pass 2 script output
>[...]
> Stuff left to do:
> 
> - Testing, testing, testing
> - Correct module handling (which Frank outlined above)

Actually, correct module handling should already be covered if you're
hashing the pass-2 output.  Pass-2 is elaboration, which uses debuginfo
to locate the actual probe points.  Suppose I run a script like this:

	probe module("*").function("*interrupt*") { log(probefunc()) }

Pass-2 output will include all of the probe points matching my wildcard:

  ...
  module("ahci").function("ahci_interrupt@drivers/scsi/ahci.c:889"),
 
module("libata").function("ata_interrupt@drivers/scsi/libata-core.c:4198
"),
  ...

If I then load a new module that also has a "*interrupt*" function, the
pass-2 output will include the new probe point, and will thus get a
different hash.

In my estimation, there are two lengthy tasks in script compilation:
pass-2 elaboration (digging through lots of debuginfo) and pass-4
C-compilation.  This caching mechanism removes the pain of pass-4, which
is probably the worse of the two.  But if you find a caching scheme to
also avoid pass-2, then the module handling will need to be considered.


Josh