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gprof

Code profiler (GNU)

Syntax:

gprof_variant options [executable [data-files...]] [> outfile]

Options:

The gprof_variant depends on the target platform, as follows:

Output options

These options specify gprof's output format.

Many of these options take an optional symspec to specify functions to be included or excluded. These options can be specified multiple times, with different symspecs, to include or exclude sets of symbols. For more information, see the gprof documentation at the GNU website (http://www.gnu.org/).

Specifying any of these options overrides the default (-p -q), which prints a flat profile and call graph analysis for all functions.

-A[symspec] or --annotated-source[=symspec]

Print annotated source code. If symspec is specified, print output only for matching symbols.

-b or --brief

Don't print the verbose explanations for all table fields.

-C[symspec] or --exec-counts[=symspec]

Print a tally of functions and the number of times each was called. If symspec is specified, print the tally only for matching symbols. If the profile data file contains basic-block count records, specifying the -l option with -C will tally and display basic-block execution counts.

--demangle

Demangle C++ symbol names.

--file-ordering map_file

Print a suggested .o link line ordering for the program based on profiling data. This option suggests an ordering which might improve paging, TLB and cache behavior for the program on systems that don't support arbitrary ordering of functions in an executable. Use of the -a argument is highly recommended with this option. The map_file argument is a pathname to a file providing function name to object file mappings. The format of the file is similar to the output of the program nm.

c-parse.o:00000000 T yyparse
c-parse.o:00000004 C yyerrflag
c-lang.o:00000000 T maybe_objc_method_name
c-lang.o:00000000 T print_lang_statistics
c-lang.o:00000000 T recognize_objc_keyword
c-decl.o:00000000 T print_lang_identifier
c-decl.o:00000000 T print_lang_type
...

The GNU nm --extern-only --defined-only -v --print-file-name can be used to create map_file.

--function-ordering

Print a suggested function ordering for the program based on the profiling data. This option suggests an ordering which might improve paging, TLB and cache behavior for the program on systems that support arbitrary ordering of functions in an executable. The exact details of how to force the linker to place functions in a particular order is system dependent and out of the scope of this manual.

-i or --file-info

Display the number of histogram, call graph, and basic-block count records in the profile data file(s), then exit.

-I dirs or --directory-path=dirs

Specify a list of search directories for finding source files. The GPROF_PATH environment variable can also be used to specify the list of search directories.

-J[symspec] or --no-annotated-source[=symspec]

Don't print annotated source code. If symspec is specified, print annotated source, but exclude matching symbols.

-L or --print-path

Print the full pathname of source filenames, which is determined from symbolic debugging information in the image file and is relative to the directory the compiler was invoked from.

--no-demangle

Don't demangle C++ symbol names.

-p[symspec] or --flat-profile[=symspec]

Print a flat profile. If symspec is specified, print the flat profile only for matching symbols.

-P[symspec] or --no-flat-profile[=symspec]

Don't suppress print a flat profile. If symspec is specified, gprof prints a flat profile but excludes matching symbols.

-q[symspec] or --graph[=symspec]

Print the call graph analysis. If symspec is specified, print the call graph only for matching symbols and their children.

-Q[symspec] or --no-graph[=symspec]

Don't print the call graph. If symspec is specified, print the call graph but excludes matching symbols.

-T or --traditional

Print gprof output in "traditional" BSD style.

-w width or --width=width

Set the width of output lines to width characters. Only used when printing the function index at the bottom of the call graph.

-x or --all-lines

When printing annotated source, annotate every line in a basic-block by repeating the annotation for the first line.

-y or --separate-files

If generating annotated source, write the annotated source for filename to filename-ann.

-Z[symspec] or --no-exec-counts[=symspec]

Don't print a tally of functions and the number of times each was called. If symspec is specified, print the tally but exclude matching symbols.

Analysis options

-a or --no-static

Don't print statically declared (private) functions. Time spent in these functions, calls to/from them, etc., will all be attributed to the function that was loaded directly before it in the executable file. This option affects the flat profile and the call graph.

-c or --static-call-graph

Augment the call graph by a heuristic which examines the text space of the object file and identifies function calls in the binary machine code. Since normal call graph records are only generated when functions are entered, this option identifies children that could have been called, but never were. Calls to functions that were not compiled with profiling enabled are also identified, but only if symbol table entries are present for them. Calls to dynamic library routines are typically not found by this option. Parents or children identified via this heuristic are indicated in the call graph with call counts of 0.

-D or --ignore-non-functions

Ignore symbols which are not known to be functions. This option will give more accurate profile data.

-k from/to

Delete any arcs from symbols matching symspec from to those matching symspec to when generating the call graph.

-l or --line

Enable line-by-line profiling, which causes histogram hits to be charged to individual source code lines, instead of functions. If the program was compiled with basic-block counting enabled, this option will also identify how many times each line of code was executed. While line-by-line profiling can help isolate where in a large function a program is spending its time, it also significantly increases gprof's running time, and magnifies statistical inaccuracies.

-m num or --min-count=num

Suppress symbols that are executed less than num times in execution count output.

-n[symspec] or --time[=symspec]

Only propagate times for symbols matching symspec in the call graph analysis.

-N[symspec] or --no-time[=symspec]

Don't propagate times for symbols matching symspec in the call graph analysis.

-z or --display-unused-functions

Mention all functions in the flat profile, even those that were never called, and that had no time spent in them. This is useful in conjunction with the -c option for discovering which routines were never called.

Miscellaneous options

-d[num] or --debug[=num]

Specify debugging options. If num is not specified, enable all debugging.

-Oname or --file-format=name

Specify the profile data file format. name can be auto (the default), bsd, magic, and prof.

-s or --sum

Summarize the information in the specified profile data files and write out a profile data file called gmon.sum, which contains all the information from the profile data files that gprof read. The gmon.sum file may be one of the specified input files; the effect of this is to merge the data in the other input files into the existing gmon.sum. You can run gprof again to analyze the cumulative data in the gmon.sum file.

-v or --version

Print the current version number and exit.

Description:

The gprof utility produces code-profiling data for an application compiled with the -p option to qcc (or the -pg option to gcc). This data is interpreted visually for you by the Application Profiler perspective in the QNX Momentics IDE.

For detailed documentation about gprof, see the the GNU website at http://www.gnu.org/.

Exit status:

0

Success.

not 0

An error occurred.

Contributing author:

GNU

See also:

gcc, qcc