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perf list: Improve the raw hw event descriptor documentation
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It was x86 specific and imcomplete at that, improve the situation by
making it clear where the example provided applies and by adding the
URLs for the Intel and AMD manuals where this is discussed in depth.

Acked-by: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
Cc: Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@gmail.com>
Cc: Frédéric Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Cc: Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>
Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Tom Zanussi <tzanussi@gmail.com>
Cc: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
Reported-by: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com
LKML-Reference: <new-submission>
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
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Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo committed May 7, 2010
1 parent 4778e0e commit 1cf4a06
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19 changes: 16 additions & 3 deletions tools/perf/Documentation/perf-list.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -18,8 +18,16 @@ various perf commands with the -e option.
RAW HARDWARE EVENT DESCRIPTOR
-----------------------------
Even when an event is not available in a symbolic form within perf right now,
it can be encoded as <UMASK VALUE><EVENT NUM>, for instance, if the Intel docs
describe an event as:
it can be encoded in a per processor specific way.

For instance For x86 CPUs NNN represents the raw register encoding with the
layout of IA32_PERFEVTSELx MSRs (see [Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual Volume 3B: System Programming Guide] Figure 30-1 Layout
of IA32_PERFEVTSELx MSRs) or AMD's PerfEvtSeln (see [AMD64 Architecture Programmer’s Manual Volume 2: System Programming], Page 344,
Figure 13-7 Performance Event-Select Register (PerfEvtSeln)).

Example:

If the Intel docs for a QM720 Core i7 describe an event as:

Event Umask Event Mask
Num. Value Mnemonic Description Comment
Expand All @@ -33,11 +41,16 @@ raw encoding of 0x1A8 can be used:
perf stat -e r1a8 -a sleep 1
perf record -e r1a8 ...

You should refer to the processor specific documentation for getting these
details. Some of them are referenced in the SEE ALSO section below.

OPTIONS
-------
None

SEE ALSO
--------
linkperf:perf-stat[1], linkperf:perf-top[1],
linkperf:perf-record[1]
linkperf:perf-record[1],
http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/manual/253669.pdf[Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual Volume 3B: System Programming Guide],
http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/24593.pdf[AMD64 Architecture Programmer’s Manual Volume 2: System Programming]
3 changes: 2 additions & 1 deletion tools/perf/util/parse-events.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -936,7 +936,8 @@ void print_events(void)

printf("\n");
printf(" %-42s [%s]\n",
"rNNN (NNN=<UMASK VALUE><EVENT NUM>)", event_type_descriptors[PERF_TYPE_RAW]);
"rNNN (see 'perf list --help' on how to encode it)",
event_type_descriptors[PERF_TYPE_RAW]);
printf("\n");

printf(" %-42s [%s]\n",
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