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1.\" $NetBSD: profil.2,v 1.3 1995/11/22 23:07:23 cgd Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1993
4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
7.\" Donn Seeley of BSDI.
8.\"
9.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
10.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
11.\" are met:
12.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
14.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
15.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
16.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
17.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
18.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
19.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
20.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
21.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
22.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
23.\" without specific prior written permission.
24.\"
25.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
26.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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31.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
32.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
33.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
34.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
35.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
36.\"
37.\" @(#)profil.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
38.\"
b0d623f7 39.Dd September 26, 2008
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40.Dt PROFIL 2
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm profil
44.Nd control process profiling
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45.Sh LIBRARY
46.Lb libc
9bccf70c 47.Sh SYNOPSIS
2d21ac55 48.In unistd.h
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49.Ft int
50.Fn profil "char *samples" "size_t size" "u_long offset" "u_int scale"
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
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52.Pp
53.Fd -- This function is now deprecated. It will always return EINVAL. --
54.Pp
55The intended replacements are the user-level developer tools, like CHUD and dtrace.
56.Pp
57------
58.Pp
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59The
60.Fn profil
61function enables or disables
62program counter profiling of the current process.
63If profiling is enabled,
64then at every clock tick,
65the kernel updates an appropriate count in the
66.Fa samples
67buffer.
68.Pp
69The buffer
70.Fa samples
71contains
72.Fa size
73bytes and is divided into
74a series of 16-bit bins.
75Each bin counts the number of times the program counter
76was in a particular address range in the process
77when a clock tick occurred while profiling was enabled.
78For a given program counter address,
79the number of the corresponding bin is given
80by the relation:
81.Bd -literal -offset indent
82[(pc - offset) / 2] * scale / 65536
83.Ed
84.Pp
85The
86.Fa offset
87parameter is the lowest address at which
88the kernel takes program counter samples.
89The
90.Fa scale
91parameter ranges from 1 to 65536 and
92can be used to change the span of the bins.
93A scale of 65536 maps each bin to 2 bytes of address range;
94a scale of 32768 gives 4 bytes, 16384 gives 8 bytes and so on.
95Intermediate values provide approximate intermediate ranges.
96A
97.Fa scale
98value of 0 disables profiling.
99.Sh RETURN VALUES
100If the
101.Fa scale
102value is nonzero and the buffer
103.Fa samples
104contains an illegal address,
105.Fn profil
106returns \-1,
107profiling is terminated and
108.Va errno
109is set appropriately.
110Otherwise
111.Fn profil
112returns 0.
113.Sh FILES
114.Bl -tag -width /usr/lib/gcrt0.o -compact
115.It Pa /usr/lib/gcrt0.o
116profiling C run-time startup file
117.It Pa gmon.out
118conventional name for profiling output file
119.El
120.Sh ERRORS
121The following error may be reported:
122.Bl -tag -width Er
123.It Bq Er EFAULT
124The buffer
125.Fa samples
126contains an invalid address.
127.El
128.Sh SEE ALSO
129.Xr gprof 1
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130.Sh HISTORY
131The
132.Fn profil
133function appeared in
134.At v7 .
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135.Sh BUGS
136This routine should be named
137.Fn profile .
138.Pp
139The
140.Fa samples
141argument should really be a vector of type
142.Fa "unsigned short" .
143.Pp
144The format of the gmon.out file is undocumented.