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Package pprof

import "runtime/pprof"
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Package pprof writes runtime profiling data in the format expected by the pprof visualization tool.

Profiling a Go program

The first step to profiling a Go program is to enable profiling. Support for profiling benchmarks built with the standard testing package is built into go test. For example, the following command runs benchmarks in the current directory and writes the CPU and memory profiles to cpu.prof and mem.prof:

go test -cpuprofile cpu.prof -memprofile mem.prof -bench .

To add equivalent profiling support to a standalone program, add code like the following to your main function:

var cpuprofile = flag.String("cpuprofile", "", "write cpu profile `file`")
var memprofile = flag.String("memprofile", "", "write memory profile to `file`")

func main() {
    flag.Parse()
    if *cpuprofile != "" {
        f, err := os.Create(*cpuprofile)
        if err != nil {
            log.Fatal("could not create CPU profile: ", err)
        }
        if err := pprof.StartCPUProfile(f); err != nil {
            log.Fatal("could not start CPU profile: ", err)
        }
        defer pprof.StopCPUProfile()
    }
    ...
    if *memprofile != "" {
        f, err := os.Create(*memprofile)
        if err != nil {
            log.Fatal("could not create memory profile: ", err)
        }
        runtime.GC() // get up-to-date statistics
        if err := pprof.WriteHeapProfile(f); err != nil {
            log.Fatal("could not write memory profile: ", err)
        }
        f.Close()
    }
}

There is also a standard HTTP interface to profiling data. Adding the following line will install handlers under the /debug/pprof/ URL to download live profiles:

import _ "net/http/pprof"

See the net/http/pprof package for more details.

Profiles can then be visualized with the pprof tool:

go tool pprof cpu.prof

There are many commands available from the pprof command line. Commonly used commands include "top", which prints a summary of the top program hot-spots, and "web", which opens an interactive graph of hot-spots and their call graphs. Use "help" for information on all pprof commands.

For more information about pprof, see https://github.com/google/pprof/blob/master/doc/pprof.md.

func Profiles

func Profiles() []*Profile

Profiles returns a slice of all the known profiles, sorted by name.

func StartCPUProfile

func StartCPUProfile(w io.Writer) error

StartCPUProfile enables CPU profiling for the current process. While profiling, the profile will be buffered and written to w. StartCPUProfile returns an error if profiling is already enabled.

On Unix-like systems, StartCPUProfile does not work by default for Go code built with -buildmode=c-archive or -buildmode=c-shared. StartCPUProfile relies on the SIGPROF signal, but that signal will be delivered to the main program's SIGPROF signal handler (if any) not to the one used by Go. To make it work, call os/signal.Notify for syscall.SIGPROF, but note that doing so may break any profiling being done by the main program.

func StopCPUProfile

func StopCPUProfile()

StopCPUProfile stops the current CPU profile, if any. StopCPUProfile only returns after all the writes for the profile have completed.

func WriteHeapProfile

func WriteHeapProfile(w io.Writer) error

WriteHeapProfile is shorthand for Lookup("heap").WriteTo(w, 0). It is preserved for backwards compatibility.

type Profile

A Profile is a collection of stack traces showing the call sequences that led to instances of a particular event, such as allocation. Packages can create and maintain their own profiles; the most common use is for tracking resources that must be explicitly closed, such as files or network connections.

A Profile's methods can be called from multiple goroutines simultaneously.

Each Profile has a unique name. A few profiles are predefined:

goroutine    - stack traces of all current goroutines
heap         - a sampling of all heap allocations
threadcreate - stack traces that led to the creation of new OS threads
block        - stack traces that led to blocking on synchronization primitives
mutex        - stack traces of holders of contended mutexes

These predefined profiles maintain themselves and panic on an explicit Add or Remove method call.

The heap profile reports statistics as of the most recently completed garbage collection; it elides more recent allocation to avoid skewing the profile away from live data and toward garbage. If there has been no garbage collection at all, the heap profile reports all known allocations. This exception helps mainly in programs running without garbage collection enabled, usually for debugging purposes.

The CPU profile is not available as a Profile. It has a special API, the StartCPUProfile and StopCPUProfile functions, because it streams output to a writer during profiling.

type Profile struct {
    // contains filtered or unexported fields
}

func Lookup

func Lookup(name string) *Profile

Lookup returns the profile with the given name, or nil if no such profile exists.

func NewProfile

func NewProfile(name string) *Profile

NewProfile creates a new profile with the given name. If a profile with that name already exists, NewProfile panics. The convention is to use a 'import/path.' prefix to create separate name spaces for each package.

func (*Profile) Add

func (p *Profile) Add(value interface{}, skip int)

Add adds the current execution stack to the profile, associated with value. Add stores value in an internal map, so value must be suitable for use as a map key and will not be garbage collected until the corresponding call to Remove. Add panics if the profile already contains a stack for value.

The skip parameter has the same meaning as runtime.Caller's skip and controls where the stack trace begins. Passing skip=0 begins the trace in the function calling Add. For example, given this execution stack:

Add
called from rpc.NewClient
called from mypkg.Run
called from main.main

Passing skip=0 begins the stack trace at the call to Add inside rpc.NewClient. Passing skip=1 begins the stack trace at the call to NewClient inside mypkg.Run.

func (*Profile) Count

func (p *Profile) Count() int

Count returns the number of execution stacks currently in the profile.

func (*Profile) Name

func (p *Profile) Name() string

Name returns this profile's name, which can be passed to Lookup to reobtain the profile.

func (*Profile) Remove

func (p *Profile) Remove(value interface{})

Remove removes the execution stack associated with value from the profile. It is a no-op if the value is not in the profile.

func (*Profile) WriteTo

func (p *Profile) WriteTo(w io.Writer, debug int) error

WriteTo writes a pprof-formatted snapshot of the profile to w. If a write to w returns an error, WriteTo returns that error. Otherwise, WriteTo returns nil.

The debug parameter enables additional output. Passing debug=0 prints only the hexadecimal addresses that pprof needs. Passing debug=1 adds comments translating addresses to function names and line numbers, so that a programmer can read the profile without tools.

The predefined profiles may assign meaning to other debug values; for example, when printing the "goroutine" profile, debug=2 means to print the goroutine stacks in the same form that a Go program uses when dying due to an unrecovered panic.

Bugs

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