cl-flamegraph

Rationale

Flamegraphs are a cool way to search for hotspots in your code.

Installation

Setup an Ultralisp.org distribution:

(ql-dist:install-dist "http://dist.ultralisp.org/"
                      :prompt nil)

Or clone repository to your ~/quicklisp/local-projects folder.

Then install the system:

(ql:quickload :flamegraph)

Download the FlameGraph chart generator. It is written in Perl. This tool prepares data in a simple text format that can be processed by the flamegraph.pl script to generate an SVG diagram.

Or you can upload results to the Speedscope.app site and inspect it in the browser!

Usage

Wrap the code with flamegraph:save-flame-graph macro:

CL-USER> (defun foo ()
           (sleep 0.01))
FOO
CL-USER> (defun bar ()
           (sleep 0.05))
BAR
CL-USER> (defun blah ()
           (loop repeat 1000
                 do (foo)
                    (bar)))
BLAH
CL-USER> (flamegraph:save-flame-graph ("/tmp/foo.stack")
           (blah))
; No values

This will generate a file with the content:

BLAH 8
BLAH;BAR 5
BLAH;BAR;NANOSLEEP 5
BLAH;BAR;NANOSLEEP;foreign function __syscall 2
BLAH;BAR;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep 3
BLAH;BAR;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep;foreign function clock_get_time 3
BLAH;BAR;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep;foreign function clock_get_time;foreign function mach_msg_trap 3
BLAH;FOO 3
BLAH;FOO;NANOSLEEP 3
BLAH;FOO;NANOSLEEP;foreign function __syscall 1
BLAH;FOO;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep 2
BLAH;FOO;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep;foreign function clock_get_time 2
BLAH;FOO;NANOSLEEP;foreign function sb_nanosleep;foreign function clock_get_time;foreign function mach_msg_trap 2

Pipe it through flamegraph.pl to get a nice SVG:

cat /tmp/foo.stack | flamegraph.pl > /tmp/foo.svg

And here is the result:

Similar projects

clim.flamegraph

SBCL’s sprof flamegraph inspector with it’s own UI built with McClim.

TeMPOraL’s tracer

a hack on SBCL’s tracing implementation which is able to produce data for loading into Chrome’s chrome://tracing tool.

SAM

Simple sampling profiler for ClozureCL. Without graphical interface.

ccl-metering

a tool similar to TeMPOraL’s tracer, but for ClozureCL and without any graphical interface.