Introduction

The perf_to_profile binary can be used to turn a perf.data file, which is generated by the linux profiler, perf, into a profile.proto file which can be visualized using the tool pprof.

For details on pprof, see https://github.com/google/pprof

THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL GOOGLE PRODUCT

Prerequisites to build

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get -y install g++ git libelf-dev libcap-dev

At least g++-5 or clang-7

Compile and Test

To install all dependences and build the binary, run the following commands. These were tested on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:

Compile

Install bazel by following the instructions here.

Install dependencies and build perf_to_profile using bazel

git clone https://github.com/google/perf_data_converter.git
cd perf_data_converter
bazel build src:perf_to_profile

Place the perf_to_profile binary in a place accessible from your PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin).

Running tests

There are a small number of tests that verify the basic functionality. To run these, after successful compilation, run:
```
bazel test src:all
bazel test src/quipper:all
```

Note: Executables generated using bazel build are available under the directory bazel-bin/.

Usage

Profile a command using perf, for example:
```
perf record /bin/ls
```
Recent versions of pprof will automatically invoke perf_to_profile:
```
pprof -web perf.data
```

Contribution

We appreciate your help!

Note that perf data converter and quipper projects do not use GitHub pull requests, and that we use the issue tracker for bug reports.