At the end of trace buffer handling, function cs_etm__flush() is invoked to flush any remaining branch stack entries. As a side effect, it also generates branch sample, because the 'etmq->packet' doesn't contains any new coming packet but point to one stale packet after packets swapping, so it wrongly makes synthesize branch samples with stale packet info.
We could review below detailed flow which causes issue:
Packet1: start_addr=0xffff000008b1fbf0 end_addr=0xffff000008b1fbfc Packet2: start_addr=0xffff000008b1fb5c end_addr=0xffff000008b1fb6c
step 1: cs_etm__sample(): sample: ip=(0xffff000008b1fbfc-4) addr=0xffff000008b1fb5c
step 2: flush packet in cs_etm__run_decoder(): cs_etm__run_decoder() `-> err = cs_etm__flush(etmq, false); sample: ip=(0xffff000008b1fb6c-4) addr=0xffff000008b1fbf0
Packet1 and packet2 are two continuous packets, when packet2 is the new coming packet, cs_etm__sample() generates branch sample for these two packets and use [packet1::end_addr - 4 => packet2::start_addr] as branch jump flow, thus we can see the first generated branch sample in step 1. At the end of cs_etm__sample() it swaps packets so 'etm->prev_packet'= packet2 and 'etm->packet'=packet1, so far it's okay for branch sample.
If packet2 is the last one packet in trace buffer, even there have no any new coming packet, cs_etm__run_decoder() invokes cs_etm__flush() to flush branch stack entries as expected, but it also generates branch samples by taking 'etm->packet' as a new coming packet, thus the branch jump flow is as [packet2::end_addr - 4 => packet1::start_addr]; this is the second sample which is generated in step 2. So actually the second sample is a stale sample and we should not generate it.
This patch introduces a new function cs_etm__end_block(), at the end of trace block this function is invoked to only flush branch stack entries and thus can avoid to generate branch sample for stale packet.
Cc: Mathieu Poirier mathieu.poirier@linaro.org Cc: Mike Leach mike.leach@linaro.org Cc: Robert Walker robert.walker@arm.com Signed-off-by: Leo Yan leo.yan@linaro.org --- tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c | 35 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c b/tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c index 789707b..ffc4fe5 100644 --- a/tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c +++ b/tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c @@ -1055,6 +1055,39 @@ static int cs_etm__flush(struct cs_etm_queue *etmq) return err; }
+static int cs_etm__end_block(struct cs_etm_queue *etmq) +{ + int err; + + /* + * It has no new packet coming and 'etmq->packet' contains the stale + * packet which was set at the previous time with packets swapping; + * so skip to generate branch sample to avoid stale packet. + * + * For this case only flush branch stack and generate a last branch + * event for the branches left in the circular buffer at the end of + * the trace. + */ + if (etmq->etm->synth_opts.last_branch && + etmq->prev_packet->sample_type == CS_ETM_RANGE) { + /* + * Use the address of the end of the last reported execution + * range. + */ + u64 addr = cs_etm__last_executed_instr(etmq->prev_packet); + + err = cs_etm__synth_instruction_sample( + etmq, addr, + etmq->period_instructions); + if (err) + return err; + + etmq->period_instructions = 0; + } + + return 0; +} + static int cs_etm__run_decoder(struct cs_etm_queue *etmq) { struct cs_etm_auxtrace *etm = etmq->etm; @@ -1137,7 +1170,7 @@ static int cs_etm__run_decoder(struct cs_etm_queue *etmq)
if (err == 0) /* Flush any remaining branch stack entries */ - err = cs_etm__flush(etmq); + err = cs_etm__end_block(etmq); }
return err;