perf-timechart - Man Page

There are two variants of perf timechart:

'perf timechart record <command>' to record the system level events
of an arbitrary workload​. By default timechart records only scheduler
and CPU events (task switches, running times, CPU power states, etc),
but it's possible to record IO (disk, network) activity using -I argument​.

'perf timechart' to turn a trace into a Scalable Vector Graphics file,
that can be viewed with popular SVG viewers such as 'Inkscape'​. Depending
on the events in the perf​.data file, timechart will contain scheduler/cpu
events or IO events​.

In IO mode, every bar has two charts: upper and lower​.
Upper bar shows incoming events (disk reads, ingress network packets)​.
Lower bar shows outgoing events (disk writes, egress network packets)​.
There are also poll bars which show how much time application spent
in poll/epoll/select syscalls​.

-o,  --output=

Select the output file (default: output​.svg)

-i,  --input=

Select the input file (default: perf​.data unless stdin is a fifo)

-w,  --width=

Select the width of the SVG file (default: 1000)

-P,  --power-only

Only output the CPU power section of the diagram

-T,  --tasks-only

Don’t output processor state transitions

-p,  --process

Select the processes to display, by name or PID

-f,  --force

Don’t complain, do it​.

--symfs=<directory[,layout]>

Look for files with symbols relative to this directory​. The optional layout can be hierarchy (default, matches full path) or flat (only matches base name)​. This is useful when debug files are stored in a flat directory structure​.

-n,  --proc-num

Print task info for at least given number of tasks​.

-t,  --topology

Sort CPUs according to topology​.

--highlight=<duration_nsecs|task_name>

Highlight tasks (using different color) that run more than given duration or tasks with given name​. If number is given it’s interpreted as number of nanoseconds​. If non-numeric string is given it’s interpreted as task name​.

--io-skip-eagain

Don’t draw EAGAIN IO events​.

--io-min-time=<nsecs>

Draw small events as if they lasted min-time​. Useful when you need to see very small and fast IO​. It’s possible to specify ms or us suffix to specify time in milliseconds or microseconds​. Default value is 1ms​.

--io-merge-dist=<nsecs>

Merge events that are merge-dist nanoseconds apart​. Reduces number of figures on the SVG and makes it more render-friendly​. It’s possible to specify ms or us suffix to specify time in milliseconds or microseconds​. Default value is 1us​.

-P, --power-only

Record only power-related events

-T, --tasks-only

Record only tasks-related events

-I, --io-only

Record only io-related events

-g, --callchain

Do call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording

-o, --output=

Select the output file (default: perf​.data)

$ perf timechart record git pull

[ perf record: Woken up 13 times to write data ]
[ perf record: Captured and wrote 4​.253 MB perf​.data (~185801 samples) ]

$ perf timechart

Written 10​.2 seconds of trace to output​.svg​.

Record system-wide timechart:

$ perf timechart record

then generate timechart and highlight 'gcc' tasks:

$ perf timechart --highlight gcc

Record system-wide IO events:

$ perf timechart record -I

then generate timechart:

$ perf timechart

perf-record(1)