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tracing: change branch profiling to a choice selection
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This patch makes the branch profiling into a choice selection:

  None               - no branch profiling
  likely/unlikely    - only profile likely/unlikely branches
  all                - profile all branches

The all profiler will also enable the likely/unlikely branches.

This does not change the way the profiler works or the dependencies
between the profilers.

What this patch does, is keep the branch profiling from being selected
by an allyesconfig make. The branch profiler is very intrusive and
it is known to break various architecture builds when selected as an
allyesconfig.

[ Impact: prevent branch profiler from being selected in allyesconfig ]

Reported-by: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
Reported-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Reported-by: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Reported-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
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Steven Rostedt authored and Steven Rostedt committed Apr 20, 2009
1 parent f3b9aae commit 9ae5b87
Showing 1 changed file with 33 additions and 6 deletions.
39 changes: 33 additions & 6 deletions kernel/trace/Kconfig
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -212,8 +212,36 @@ config BOOT_TRACER
to enable this on bootup.

config TRACE_BRANCH_PROFILING
bool "Trace likely/unlikely profiler"
bool
select TRACING

choice
prompt "Branch Profiling"
default BRANCH_PROFILE_NONE
help
The branch profiling is a software profiler. It will add hooks
into the C conditionals to test which path a branch takes.

The likely/unlikely profiler only looks at the conditions that
are annotated with a likely or unlikely macro.

The "all branch" profiler will profile every if statement in the
kernel. This profiler will also enable the likely/unlikely
profiler as well.

Either of the above profilers add a bit of overhead to the system.
If unsure choose "No branch profiling".

config BRANCH_PROFILE_NONE
bool "No branch profiling"
help
No branch profiling. Branch profiling adds a bit of overhead.
Only enable it if you want to analyse the branching behavior.
Otherwise keep it disabled.

config PROFILE_ANNOTATED_BRANCHES
bool "Trace likely/unlikely profiler"
select TRACE_BRANCH_PROFILING
help
This tracer profiles all the the likely and unlikely macros
in the kernel. It will display the results in:
Expand All @@ -223,23 +251,22 @@ config TRACE_BRANCH_PROFILING
Note: this will add a significant overhead, only turn this
on if you need to profile the system's use of these macros.

Say N if unsure.

config PROFILE_ALL_BRANCHES
bool "Profile all if conditionals"
depends on TRACE_BRANCH_PROFILING
select TRACE_BRANCH_PROFILING
help
This tracer profiles all branch conditions. Every if ()
taken in the kernel is recorded whether it hit or miss.
The results will be displayed in:

/debugfs/tracing/profile_branch

This option also enables the likely/unlikely profiler.

This configuration, when enabled, will impose a great overhead
on the system. This should only be enabled when the system
is to be analyzed

Say N if unsure.
endchoice

config TRACING_BRANCHES
bool
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