perfcnt(1)

NAME
perfcnt - trace the amount of time spent in each function call

SYNOPSIS
perfcnt [ -f bindfromlist ] [ t bindtolist ] [ -l perfcntlib ] executable [executable arguements ...]

AVAILABILITY

SUNWosdem

DESCRIPTION
perfcnt executes the specified command and tracks the amount of time that is spent in each procedure call. perfcnt traces all of the procedure calls that occur between dynamic objects via the Procedure Linkage Table, so only those procedure calls which are bound to the Procedure Linkage Table will be traced.

perfcnt has the limitation that it does not work with a threaded program nor any programs which use procedures which are dependent upon the stack frame. See NOTES below

OPTIONS

-f bindfromlist
    A colon seperated list of libraries that are to be traced. Only calls from these libraries will be traced. The default is to trace all calls.

-t bindtolist
    A colon seperated list of libraries taht are to be traced. Only calls to these libraries will be traced. The default is to trace all calls.

-l perfcntlib
    specify an alternate perfcnt.so Link-Auditing library to use.

EXAMPLES
The example tracks the usage of the libelf.so.1 library when performing a nm.

% perfcnt -t/usr/lib/libelf.so.1 nm /usr/lib/libc.so.1
/usr/lib/libc.so.1:
[Index]   Value      Size    Type  Bind  Other Shndx   Name
[457]   |         0|       0|NOTY |LOCL |0    |UNDEF  |
[2]     |       148|       0|SECT |LOCL |0    |1      |
[3]     |     15232|       0|SECT |LOCL |0    |2      |
[4]     |     45120|       0|SECT |LOCL |0    |3      |
[5]     |     64024|       0|SECT |LOCL |0    |4      |
...
[1893]  |    347660|      88|FUNC |LOCL |0    |12     |ypstub_perror
[1895]  |    347280|     380|FUNC |LOCL |0    |12     |ypstub_sperror
[714]   |    663472|       8|OBJT |LOCL |0    |22     |zero
Perf Counts for: nm
              SYMBOL    c_count     tim         avg. tim        tot. %
---------------------------------------------------------------------
          elf_getscn    1           4.03            4.03        0.01%
            elf_kind    1           4.36            4.36        0.01%
        _elf32_fsize    7          50.80            7.26        0.09%
     _elf32_xlatetom    6          67.47           11.24        0.11%
         elf_version    1          72.50           72.50        0.12%
       elf32_getshdr    33         77.42            2.35        0.13%
         elf_nextscn    33         83.36            2.53        0.14%
             elf_end    1         131.91          131.91        0.22%
         elf_getdata    2         138.74           69.37        0.23%
           elf_begin    1         171.74          171.74        0.29%
       elf32_getehdr    1         214.81          214.81        0.36%
         _elf_getscn    4254     9755.89            2.29        16.38%
          elf_strptr    4254    48784.97           11.47        81.91%
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                Total Time: 59557.98

NOTES
The perfcnt command is a demonstration of the Link-Auditing interface of the run-time linker (which is documented in , and it is not usefull in all environments. This program will not work with a threaded application and should not be used with one. Also, in order to track the time spent in a procedure both the entry and exit of the procedure must be tracked. Because this causes an additional stack frame to be created for each procedure call it is not compatible with all library routines. More details on this can be found in the Link-Auditing section of

SEE ALSO
ld.so.1(1)