go-profiler-notes/pprof.md
Felix Geisendörfer cf635dc9bf Formatting
2021-01-09 16:15:00 +01:00

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# Go's pprof tool & format
The various profilers built into Go are designed to work with the [pprof visualization tool](https://github.com/google/pprof). The upstream pprof tool is designed to work with C++, Java and Go programs, but it's recommended to access the tool via the `go tool pprof` version that's [bundled](https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/cmd/pprof) with the Go core. It's largely the same except for a few tweaks.
## pprof Format
The pprof tool defines a [protocol buffer](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers) output format, which is described in great detail in this [README](https://github.com/google/pprof/blob/master/proto/README.md) as well as the [profile.proto](https://github.com/google/pprof/blob/master/proto/profile.proto) definition file itself. The format is used for all profiling in Go, and the protocol buffer data files themselves are always comressed using gzip.
TODO: Give a better high level introduction
## Decoding pprof Files
### Using `go tool pprof`
The easiest way to decode a pprof file and see its contents is to use `go tool pprof -raw`. The output is formatted for human readability, so arguabiliy it's not as `-raw` as the `protoc` output shown later on.
Let's have a look at the [examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pb.gz](./examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pb.gz) CPU profile included in this repository:
```
$ go tool pprof -raw examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pb.gz
PeriodType: cpu nanoseconds
Period: 10000000
Time: 2021-01-08 17:10:32.116825 +0100 CET
Duration: 3.13
Samples:
samples/count cpu/nanoseconds
19 190000000: 1 2 3
5 50000000: 4 5 2 3
1 10000000: 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1 10000000: 15 16 17 11 18 14
2 20000000: 6 7 8 9 10 11 18 14
7 70000000: 19 20 21 22 23 24 14
3 30000000: 25 26 27 28
Locations
1: 0x1372f7f M=1 main.computeSum /Users/felix.geisendoerfer/go/src/github.com/felixge/go-profiler-notes/examples/cpu/main.go:39 s=0
2: 0x13730f2 M=1 main.run.func2 /Users/felix.geisendoerfer/go/src/github.com/felixge/go-profiler-notes/examples/cpu/main.go:31 s=0
3: 0x1372cf8 M=1 golang.org/x/sync/errgroup.(*Group).Go.func1 /Users/felix.geisendoerfer/go/pkg/mod/golang.org/x/sync@v0.0.0-20201207232520-09787c993a3a/errgroup/errgroup.go:57 s=0
...
Mappings
1: 0x0/0x0/0x0 [FN]
```
The output above is truncated, [examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pprof.txt](./examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pprof.txt) has the full version.
### Using `protoc`
For those interested in seeing data closer to the raw binary storage, we need the `protoc` protocol buffer compiler. On macOS you can use `brew install protobuf` to install it, for other platform take a look at the [README's install section](https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf#protocol-compiler-installation).
Now let's take a look at the same CPU profile from above:
```
$ gzcat examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.pb.gz | protoc --decode perftools.profiles.Profile ./profile.proto
sample_type {
type: 1
unit: 2
}
sample_type {
type: 3
unit: 4
}
sample {
location_id: 1
location_id: 2
location_id: 3
value: 19
value: 190000000
}
sample {
location_id: 4
location_id: 5
location_id: 2
location_id: 3
value: 5
value: 50000000
}
...
mapping {
id: 1
has_functions: true
}
location {
id: 1
mapping_id: 1
address: 20393855
line {
function_id: 1
line: 39
}
}
location {
id: 2
mapping_id: 1
address: 20394226
line {
function_id: 2
line: 31
}
}
...
function {
id: 1
name: 5
system_name: 5
filename: 6
}
function {
id: 2
name: 7
system_name: 7
filename: 6
}
...
string_table: ""
string_table: "samples"
string_table: "count"
string_table: "cpu"
string_table: "nanoseconds"
string_table: "main.computeSum"
string_table: "/Users/felix.geisendoerfer/go/src/github.com/felixge/go-profiler-notes/examples/cpu/main.go"
...
time_nanos: 1610122232116825000
duration_nanos: 3135113726
period_type {
type: 3
unit: 4
}
period: 10000000
```
The output above is truncated also, [pprof.samples.cpu.001.protoc.txt](./examples/cpu/pprof.samples.cpu.001.protoc.txt) has the full version.