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From:   Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
Date:   Tue, 31 Aug 2021 07:26:18 -0500
Message-ID: <CAL_JsqLKD0DZT63MQ9vTumOf1bfRrU9Bt9Qa_GTb1siRsK+Z+g@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] libperf: Add processing to scale the counters
 obtained during the read() system call when multiplexing
To:     "nakamura.shun@fujitsu.com" <nakamura.shun@fujitsu.com>
Cc:     "peterz@infradead.org" <peterz@infradead.org>,
        "mingo@redhat.com" <mingo@redhat.com>,
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        "mark.rutland@arm.com" <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
        "alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com" 
        <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>,
        "jolsa@redhat.com" <jolsa@redhat.com>,
        "namhyung@kernel.org" <namhyung@kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        "linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org" <linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org>
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On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 5:12 AM nakamura.shun@fujitsu.com
<nakamura.shun@fujitsu.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Rob
>
> > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 06:39:06PM +0900, Shunsuke Nakamura wrote:
> > > perf_evsel__read() scales counters obtained by RDPMC during multiplexing, but
> > > does not scale counters obtained by read() system call.
> > >
> > > Add processing to perf_evsel__read() to scale the counters obtained during the
> > > read() system call when multiplexing.
> >
> > Which one is right though? Changing what read() returns could break
> > users, right? Or are you implying that the RDPMC path is correct and
> > read() was not. More likely the former case since I wrote the latter.
>
> perf_evsel__read() returns both the count obtained by RDPMC and the count obtained
> by the read() system call when multiplexed with RDPMC enabled.
>
> That is, there is a mix of scaled and unscaled values.
>
> As Rob says, when this patch is applied, rescaling the count obtained from
> perf_evsel__read() during multiplexing will break the count.
>
> I think the easiest solution is to change the value you get from RDPMC to not scale
> and let the user scale it, but I thought it would be a little inconvenient.

Agreed, unless someone else has an opinion. It would be good to do the
scaling in libperf with the optimized math op, but I assume there's
some reason the user may need unscaled values?

Rob