[Buildroot] [RFC] Build time graph generation

[Thomas De Schampheleire]

Hi,

On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 6:17 PM, Thomas Petazzoni
<thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Here are two patches that implement a simple modification of the
> package infrastructure to output some timing data about the duration
> taken by each step for each package, and then a small Python script
> that generates graphs from those informations.
>
> I am not sure that there is any useful usage of those graphs, but it's
> fun and there are nice to look at.
>
> Here are some sample graphs, first on a moderately large package set:
>
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/big/histogram-build-order.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/big/histogram-duration-order.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/big/pie-packages.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/big/pie-steps.pdf
>
> and then on a smaller package set:
>
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/small/histogram-build-order.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/small/histogram-duration-order.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/small/pie-packages.pdf
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/pub/buildroot/graph-time/small/pie-steps.pdf
>
> I don't think the modification to the package infrastructure is ready
> for merging (there are many cases not handled, like when the timing
> data should be cleaned up, the case of overriden packages not being
> handled, etc.) and I am not even sure it is useful to complicate the
> package infrastructure with such a not-so-useful feature.

I like the idea of having such information, so I'm in favor of these patches.

(The graphs also painfully show the time lost in all ./configure
steps, while many of the checks are identical...)

As I mentioned as comment on your patch, I think we can make this an
optional feature for those who want it.

Is it possible to have html output as an alternative to pdf? I can
also imagine that some people simply want image files, like png or
even svg, so the graphs can easily be embedded in other web pages.

Best regards,
Thomas

>
> Regards,
>
> Thomas
>
> The following changes since commit ddb8c639c312fd9f65dbb123837c100281495d50:
>
>  libplayer: mark python bindings as broken (2011-10-08 22:39:29 +0200)
>
> are available in the git repository at:
>  http://free-electrons.com/~thomas/buildroot.git for-2011.11/graph-build-time
>
> Thomas Petazzoni (2):
>      package: instrument to gather timing data
>      graph-build-time: generate graphs based on timing data
>
>  package/Makefile.package.in      |   28 ++++
>  support/scripts/graph-build-time |  252 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 280 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100755 support/scripts/graph-build-time
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Thomas Petazzoni
> _______________________________________________
> buildroot mailing list
> buildroot at busybox.net
> http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/buildroot
>