Re: [PATCH -v4 4/9] tracing: add static function tracer support for MIPS

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

On Thu, 2009-10-22 at 13:30 -0700, Adam Nemet wrote:
> Maybe scanning the instructions should stop at the beginning of the function
> based on the kernel's symbol table.  I am not sure if we can establish any
> other stopping condition without affecting performance too much.

How would we check the kernel symbol table? Remember, this happens at
_every_ function call.

> 
> Speaking of performance, -pg also affects the instruction scheduling freedom
> of the compiler in the prologue.  With profiling, we limit optimizations not
> to move instructions in and out of the prologue.
> 
> Also note that for functions invoked via tail call you won't get an exit
> event.  E.g. if bar is tail-called from foo:
> 
>   foo entered
>   bar entered
>   foo/bar exited
> 
> However, this is not MIPS-specific and you can always disable tail calls
> with -fno-optimize-sibling-calls.

The question is, would bar have a _mcount call? So far, we have not had
any issues with this on either x86 nor PPC.

/me knocks on wood.

-- Steve