View Source lcnt (tools v4.0)

A runtime system Lock Profiling tool.

The lcnt module is used to profile the internal ethread locks in the Erlang Runtime System. With lcnt enabled, internal counters in the runtime system are updated each time a lock is taken. The counters stores information about the number of acquisition tries and the number of collisions that has occurred during the acquisition tries. The counters also record the waiting time a lock has caused for a blocked thread when a collision has occurred.

The data produced by the lock counters will give an estimate on how well the runtime system will behave from a parallelizable view point for the scenarios tested. This tool was mainly developed to help Erlang runtime developers iron out potential and generic bottlenecks.

Locks in the emulator are named after what type of resource they protect and where in the emulator they are initialized, those are lock 'classes'. Most of those locks are also instantiated several times, and given unique identifiers, to increase locking granularity. Typically an instantiated lock protects a disjunct set of the resource, for example ets tables, processes or ports. In other cases it protects a specific range of a resource, for example pix_lock which protects index to process mappings, and is given a unique number within the class. A unique lock in lcnt is referenced by a name (class) and an identifier: {Name, Id}.

Some locks in the system are static and protects global resources, for example bif_timers and the run_queue locks. Other locks are dynamic and not necessarily long lived, for example process locks and ets-table locks. The statistics data from short lived locks can be stored separately when the locks are deleted. This behavior is by default turned off to save memory but can be turned on via lcnt:rt_opt({copy_save, true}). The lcnt:apply/1,2,3 functions enables this behavior during profiling.

See Also

LCNT User's Guide

Summary

Convenience functions

Equivalent to apply(Fun, []).

Sets up lock counters, applies Fun with Args, and cleans up.

Creates a process id with creation 0.

Equivalent to port(node(), Id).

Creates a port id with creation 0.

Internal runtime lock counter controllers

Equivalent to rt_clear(node()).

Clear the internal counters.

Returns a list of raw lock counter data.

Return the current category mask for the current node.

Sets the current lock category mask for the current node or retrieves the current mask for a remote node.

Sets the lock category mask according to Categories on node Node.

Sets a single option on node Node.

Functions

Equivalent to clear(node()).

Clears the internal lock statistics from the runtime system.

Equivalent to collect(node()).

Collects lock statistics from the runtime system.

Equivalent to conflicts([]).

Prints a list of internal locks and its statistics.

Prints lcnt server state and generic information about collected lock statistics.

Prints a list of internal lock counters for a specific lock.

Restores previously saved data to the server.

Equivalent to locations([]).

Prints a list of internal lock counters by source code locations.

Saves the collected data to file.

Starts the lock profiler server.

Stops the lock profiler server.

Swaps places on Name and Id space for ports and processes.

Types

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category_atom()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type category_atom() :: atom().
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lock_counter_data()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type lock_counter_data() :: term().
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option()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type option() ::
    {sort, Sort :: sort()} |
    {reverse, boolean()} |
    {locations, boolean()} |
    {thresholds, Thresholds :: [threshold()]} |
    {print, PrintOptions :: [print() | {print(), non_neg_integer()}]} |
    {max_locks, MaxLocks :: non_neg_integer() | none} |
    {combine, boolean()}.
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print()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type print() :: colls | duration | entry | id | name | ratio | time | tries | type.
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sort()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type sort() :: colls | entry | id | name | ratio | time | tries | type.
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threshold()

View Source (not exported) (since OTP R13B04)
-type threshold() :: {colls, non_neg_integer()} | {time, non_neg_integer()} | {tries, non_neg_integer()}.

Convenience functions

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apply(Fun)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec apply(Fun) -> term() when Fun :: fun().

Equivalent to apply(Fun, []).

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apply(Fun, Args)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec apply(Fun, Args) -> term() when Fun :: fun(), Args :: [term()].

Sets up lock counters, applies Fun with Args, and cleans up.

Clears the lock counters and then setups the instrumentation to save all destroyed locks. After setup the function is called, passing the elements in Args as arguments. When the function returns the statistics are immediately collected to the server. After the collection the instrumentation is returned to its previous behavior. The result of the applied function is returned.

Warning

This function should only be used for micro-benchmarks; it sets copy_save to true for the duration of the call, which can quickly lead to running out of memory.

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apply(Module, Function, Args)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec apply(Module, Function, Args) -> term()
         when Module :: module(), Function :: atom(), Args :: [term()].

Equivalent to apply(fun() -> apply(Module, Function, Args) end).

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pid(Id, Serial)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec pid(Id, Serial) -> pid() when Id :: integer(), Serial :: integer().

Equivalent to pid(node(), Id, Serial).

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pid(Node, Id, Serial)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec pid(Node, Id, Serial) -> pid() when Node :: node(), Id :: integer(), Serial :: integer().

Creates a process id with creation 0.

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port(Id)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec port(Id) -> port() when Id :: integer().

Equivalent to port(node(), Id).

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port(Node, Id)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec port(Node, Id) -> port() when Node :: node(), Id :: integer().

Creates a port id with creation 0.

Internal runtime lock counter controllers

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rt_clear()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_clear() -> ok.

Equivalent to rt_clear(node()).

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rt_clear(Node)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_clear(Node) -> ok when Node :: node().

Clear the internal counters.

Equivalent to lcnt:clear(Node).

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rt_collect()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_collect() -> [lock_counter_data()].

Equivalent to rt_collect(node()).

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rt_collect(Node)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_collect(Node) -> [lock_counter_data()] when Node :: node().

Returns a list of raw lock counter data.

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rt_mask()

View Source (since OTP 20.1)
-spec rt_mask() -> [category_atom()].

Return the current category mask for the current node.

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rt_mask(Arg)

View Source (since OTP 20.1)
-spec rt_mask(Node) -> [category_atom()] when Node :: node();
       (Categories) -> ok | {error, copy_save_enabled} when Categories :: [category_atom()].

Sets the current lock category mask for the current node or retrieves the current mask for a remote node.

If Arg is an atom, it is assumed to be a node, and this call returns the current lock category mask for node Arg.

If Arg is a list, this call is equivalent to rt_mask(node(), Arg).

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rt_mask(Node, Categories)

View Source (since OTP 20.1)
-spec rt_mask(Node, Categories) -> ok | {error, copy_save_enabled}
           when Node :: node(), Categories :: [category_atom()].

Sets the lock category mask according to Categories on node Node.

This call will fail if the copy_save option is enabled; see lcnt:rt_opt/2.

Valid categories are:

  • allocator
  • db (ETS tables)
  • debug
  • distribution
  • generic
  • io
  • process
  • scheduler

This list is subject to change at any time, as is the category any given lock belongs to.

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rt_opt(Option)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_opt(Option) -> boolean()
          when Option :: {Type, Value :: boolean()}, Type :: copy_save | process_locks.

Equivalent to rt_opt(node(), {Type, Value}).

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rt_opt(Node, Option)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec rt_opt(Node, Option) -> boolean()
          when
              Node :: node(),
              Option :: {Type, Value :: boolean()},
              Type :: copy_save | process_locks.

Sets a single option on node Node.

Option description:

  • {copy_save, boolean()} - Retains the statistics of destroyed locks.
    Default: false

    Warning

    This option will use a lot of memory when enabled, which must be reclaimed with lcnt:rt_clear/0,1. Note that it makes no distinction between locks that were destroyed and locks for which counting was disabled, so enabling this option will disable changes to the lock category mask.

  • {process_locks, boolean()} - Profile process locks, equal to adding process to the lock category mask; see lcnt:rt_mask/2.
    Default: true

Functions

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clear()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec clear() -> ok.

Equivalent to clear(node()).

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clear(Node)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec clear(Node) -> ok when Node :: node().

Clears the internal lock statistics from the runtime system.

This clears the data in the runtime system but not in server. All counters for static locks are zeroed, all dynamic locks currently alive are zeroed and all saved locks now destroyed are removed. It also resets the duration timer.

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collect()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec collect() -> ok.

Equivalent to collect(node()).

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collect(Node)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec collect(Node) -> ok when Node :: node().

Collects lock statistics from the runtime system.

The function starts a server if it is not already started. It then populates the server with lock statistics. If the server held any lock statistics data before the collect then that data is lost.

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conflicts()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec conflicts() -> ok.

Equivalent to conflicts([]).

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conflicts(Options)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec conflicts(Options) -> ok when Options :: [option()].

Prints a list of internal locks and its statistics.

For option description, see lcnt:inspect/2.

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information()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec information() -> ok.

Prints lcnt server state and generic information about collected lock statistics.

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inspect(Lock)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec inspect(Lock) -> ok
           when
               Lock :: Name | {Name, Id | [Id]},
               Name :: atom() | pid() | port(),
               Id :: atom() | integer() | pid() | port().

Equivalent to inspect(Lock, []).

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inspect(Lock, Options)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec inspect(Lock, Options) -> ok
           when
               Lock :: Name | {Name, Id | [Id]},
               Name :: atom() | pid() | port(),
               Id :: atom() | integer() | pid() | port(),
               Options :: [option()].

Prints a list of internal lock counters for a specific lock.

Lock Name and Id for ports and processes are interchangeable with the use of lcnt:swap_pid_keys/0 and is the reason why pid/0 and port/0 options can be used in both Name and Id space. Both pids and ports are special identifiers with stripped creation and can be recreated with lcnt:pid/2,3 and lcnt:port/1,2.

Option description:

  • {combine, boolean()} - Combine the statistics from different instances of a lock class.
    Default: true

  • {locations, boolean()} - Print the statistics by source file and line numbers.
    Default: false

  • {max_locks, MaxLocks} - Maximum number of locks printed or no limit with none.
    Default: 20

  • {print, PrintOptions} - Printing options:

    • name - Named lock or named set of locks (classes). The same name used for initializing the lock in the VM.

    • id - Internal id for set of locks, not always unique. This could be table name for ets tables (db_tab), port id for ports, integer identifiers for allocators, etc.

    • type - Type of lock: rw_mutex, mutex, spinlock, rw_spinlock or proclock.

    • entry - In combination with {locations, true} this option prints the lock operations source file and line number entry-points along with statistics for each entry.

    • tries - Number of acquisitions of this lock.

    • colls - Number of collisions when a thread tried to acquire this lock. This is when a trylock is EBUSY, a write try on read held rw_lock, a try read on write held rw_lock, a thread tries to lock an already locked lock. (Internal states supervises this.)

    • ratio - The ratio between the number of collisions and the number of tries (acquisitions) in percentage.

    • time - Accumulated waiting time for this lock. This could be greater than actual wall clock time, it is accumulated for all threads. Trylock conflicts does not accumulate time.

    • duration - Percentage of accumulated waiting time of wall clock time. This percentage can be higher than 100% since accumulated time is from all threads.

    Default: [name,id,tries,colls,ratio,time,duration]

  • {reverse, boolean()} - Reverses the order of sorting.
    Default: false

  • {sort, Sort} - Column sorting orders.
    Default: time

  • {thresholds, Thresholds} - Filtering thresholds. Anything values above the threshold value are passed through.
    Default: [{tries, 0}, {colls, 0}, {time, 0}]

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load(Filename)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec load(Filename) -> ok when Filename :: file:filename().

Restores previously saved data to the server.

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locations()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec locations() -> ok.

Equivalent to locations([]).

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locations(Options)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec locations(Options) -> ok when Options :: [option()].

Prints a list of internal lock counters by source code locations.

For option description, see lcnt:inspect/2.

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save(Filename)

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec save(Filename) -> ok when Filename :: file:filename().

Saves the collected data to file.

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start()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec start() -> {ok, Pid} | {error, {already_started, Pid}} when Pid :: pid().

Starts the lock profiler server.

The server only act as a medium for the user and performs filtering and printing of data collected by lcnt:collect/1.

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stop()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec stop() -> ok.

Stops the lock profiler server.

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swap_pid_keys()

View Source (since OTP R13B04)
-spec swap_pid_keys() -> ok.

Swaps places on Name and Id space for ports and processes.