linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] perf: make perf.data more self-descriptive (v4)

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Date:	Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:50:21 -0600
From:	David Ahern <dsahern@...il.com>
To:	Stephane Eranian <eranian@...gle.com>
CC:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, acme@...hat.com, mingo@...e.hu
Subject: Re: [PATCH] perf: make perf.data more self-descriptive (v4)

On 09/16/2011 08:35 AM, Stephane Eranian wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, 2011-09-12 at 16:40 +0200, Stephane Eranian wrote:
>>> I don't think this should be the test to detect endianess.
>>
>> You should be able to tell the endianness from the PERF_MAGIC string, it
>> stores the string as a u64, so depending on endianness it reads back as
>> either: PERFFILE or ELIFFREP or whatever the bswap64 result is.
>>
> 
> I believe in big endian, if you do od -c perf.data | head -1, you also see:
> 
> 0000000   P   E   R   F   F   I   L   E   h  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
> 
> static const char *__perf_magic = "PERFFILE";
> #define PERF_MAGIC      (*(u64 *)__perf_magic)
> 
> u64 hm = PERF_MAGIC;
> 
> The layout in memory is the same for both little-endian and
> big-endian. Thus the layout on the file is the same.
> 
> When you look at the memory as u64, then things are different:
> In little-endian, hm=0x454c494646524550
> in big-endian,   hm=0x5045524646494c45
> 
> In big-endian, the MSB 0x50 ('P') ends up at the lowest memory address.
> In little-endian, the LSB 0x50 ('P') ends up at the lowest memory address.
> 
> Thus, I suspect we need to write in the file a different MAGIC for big vs.
> little endian.
> 
> David, can you confirm this?

on x86:
$  od -c perf.data | head -1
0000000   P   E   R   F   F   I   L   E   h  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0

on PPC:
# od -c perf.data | head -1
0000000   P   E   R   F   F   I   L   E  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0   h

And then PPC file on x86:
$ od -c perf-ppc.data | head -1
0000000   P   E   R   F   F   I   L   E  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0   h

So it is the same and that explains why the current code is:

    if (readn(fd, header, sizeof(*header)) <= 0 ||
        memcmp(&header->magic, __perf_magic, sizeof(header->magic)))
        return -1;

versus a u64 comparison. Printing magic as a PRIx64 running the command
on x86:

ppc data file: header->magic 454c494646524550
x86 data file: header->magic 454c494646524550

Which is expected given the od -c output above.

David
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