Add documentation for sample profiling support.

[dnovillo]

Summary

This documents the usage of sample profilers with Clang and the
profile format expected by LLVM's optimizers. It also documents the
profile conversion tool used by Linux Perf.

[dnovillo]

Doug, would you be able to take a look at this patch? I wasn't sure if you're the one to review doc patches, but you seemed the best default according to CODE_OWNERS.TXT

Thanks. Diego.

[rsmith]

Mostly copy-editing, but some questions too.

docs/UsersManual.rst

1073

Should this be "do not incur a large runtime overhead" ?

1075

"to determine what the most executed ares of the code are."

1078

"and" instead of ",".

1083

"another function `bar`"

1092

"`-gline-tables-only`"

1131–1133

Are you required to use the exact same arguments that you used before, other than the -fprofile-sample-use= argument? Either way, we should say so here.

1149–1150

Is the whitespace required to be a single space, or can it be any sequence of horizontal whitespace? Is any other whitespace allowed than that listed here?

1164

Should "at the prologue" be "in the prologue"?

1165

"how frequently the function is invoked."

1173–1174

What happens if the line is in a different file (eg through macro expansion or inlining)?

1176–1178

... and what is it, in that case? At a guess: "If present, this is a decimal integer representing the value of the DWARF discriminator register."

1180–1181

Decimal integer? Floating point? Something else? Is scientific notation OK? Is hexadecimal OK?

1193–1194

". With" -> ", with"
"frequent call" -> "frequently called"

[dnovillo]

• Review feedback

[rsmith]

docs/UsersManual.rst

1126

This will read `perf.data and the binary file ./code`, and emit

1163

Maybe drop the second "lines" here?

[dnovillo]

• Review feedback.

[dnovillo]

docs/UsersManual.rst

1126

Done.

1163

Done.

[dnovillo]

• Review feedback.

[rsmith]

LGTM

docs/UsersManual.rst

 .. option:: -mgeneral-regs-only
 
    Generate code which only uses the general purpose registers.
 
    This option restricts the generated code to use general registers
    only. This only applies to the AArch64 architecture.
 
 
+Using Sampling Profilers for Optimization
+-----------------------------------------
+
+Sampling profilers are used to collect runtime information, such as
+hardware counters, while your application executes. They are typically
+very efficient and do not incur a large runtime overhead. The
+sample data collected by the profiler can be used during compilation
+to determine what the most executed areas of the code are.
+
+In particular, sample profilers can provide execution counts for all
+instructions in the code and information on branches taken and function
+invocation. The compiler can use this information in its optimization
+cost models. For example, knowing that a branch is taken very
+frequently helps the compiler make better decisions when ordering
+basic blocks. Knowing that a function ``foo`` is called more
+frequently than another function ``bar`` helps the inliner.
+
+Using the data from a sample profiler requires some changes in the way
+a program is built. Before the compiler can use profiling information,
+the code needs to execute under the profiler. The following is the
+usual build cycle when using sample profilers for optimization:
+
+1. Build the code with source line table information. You can use all the
+   usual build flags that you always build your application with. The only
+   requirement is that you add ``-gline-tables-only`` or ``-g`` to the
+   command line. This is important for the profiler to be able to map
+   instructions back to source line locations.
+
+   .. code-block:: console
+
+     $ clang++ -O2 -gline-tables-only code.cc -o code
+
+2. Run the executable under a sampling profiler. The specific profiler
+   you use does not really matter, as long as its output can be converted
+   into the format that the LLVM optimizer understands. Currently, there
+   exists a conversion tool for the Linux Perf profiler
+   (https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/), so these examples assume that you
+   are using Linux Perf to profile your code.
+
+   .. code-block:: console
+
+     $ perf record -b ./code
+
+   Note the use of the ``-b`` flag. This tells Perf to use the Last Branch
+   Record (LBR) to record call chains. While this is not strictly required,
+   it provides better call information, which improves the accuracy of
+   the profile data.
+
+3. Convert the collected profile data to LLVM's sample profile format.
+   This is currently supported via the AutoFDO converter ``create_llvm_prof``.
+   It is available at http://github.com/google/autofdo. Once built and
+   installed, you can convert the ``perf.data`` file to LLVM using
+   the command:
+
+   .. code-block:: console
+
+     $ create_llvm_prof --binary=./code --out=code.prof
+
+   This will read ``perf.data``, the binary file ``./code`` and emit
+   the profile data in ``code.prof``. Note that if you ran ``perf``
+   without the ``-b`` flag, you need to use ``--use_lbr=false`` when
+   calling ``create_llvm_prof``.
+
+4. Build the code again using the collected profile. This step feeds
+   the profile back to the optimizers. This should result in a binary
+   that executes faster than the original one. Note that you are not
+   required to build the code with the exact same arguments that you
+   used in the first step. The only requirement is that you build the code
+   with ``-gline-tables-only`` and ``-fprofile-sample-use``.
+
+   .. code-block:: console
+
+     $ clang++ -O2 -gline-tables-only -fprofile-sample-use=code.prof code.cc -o code
+
+
+Sample Profile Format
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+If you are not using Linux Perf to collect profiles, you will need to
+write a conversion tool from your profiler to LLVM's format. This section
+explains the file format expected by the backend.
+
+Sample profiles are written as ASCII text. The file is divided into sections,
+which correspond to each of the functions executed at runtime. Each
+section has the following format (taken from
+https://github.com/google/autofdo/blob/master/profile_writer.h):
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+    function1:total_samples:total_head_samples
+    offset1[.discriminator]: number_of_samples [fn1:num fn2:num ... ]
+    offset2[.discriminator]: number_of_samples [fn3:num fn4:num ... ]
+    ...
+    offsetN[.discriminator]: number_of_samples [fn5:num fn6:num ... ]
+
+The file may contain blank lines between sections and lines within a
+section. However, the spacing within a single line is fixed. Additional
+spaces will result in an error while reading the file.
+
+Function names must be mangled in order for the profile loader to
+match them in the current translation unit. The two numbers in the
+function header specify how many total samples were accumulated in the
+function (first number), and the total number of samples accumulated
+in the prologue of the function (second number). This head sample
+count provides an indicator of how frequently the function is invoked.
+
+Each sampled line may contain several items. Some are optional (marked
+below):
+
+a. Source line offset. This number represents the line number
+   in the function where the sample was collected. The line number is
+   always relative to the line where symbol of the function is
+   defined. So, if the function has its header at line 280, the offset
+   13 is at line 293 in the file.
+
+b. [OPTIONAL] Discriminator. This is used if the sampled program
+   was compiled with DWARF discriminator support
+   (http://wiki.dwarfstd.org/index.php?title=Path_Discriminators).
+   DWARF discriminators allow the compiler to distinguish between
+   multiple execution paths on the same source line location.
+
+   For example, consider the line of code ``if (cond) foo(); else bar();``.
+   If the predicate ``cond`` is true 80% of the time, then the edge
+   into function ``foo`` should be considered to be taken most of the
+   time. But both calls to ``foo`` and ``bar`` are at the same source
+   line, so a sample count at that line is not sufficient. The
+   compiler needs to know which part of that line is taken more
+   frequently.
+
+   This is what discriminators provide. In this case, the calls to
+   ``foo`` and ``bar`` will be at the same line, but will have
+   different discriminator values. This allows the compiler to correctly
+   set edge weights into ``foo`` and ``bar``.
+
+c. Number of samples. This is an integer quantity representing the
+   number of samples collected by the profiler at this source
+   location.
+
+d. [OPTIONAL] Potential call targets and samples. If present, this
+   line contains a call instruction. This models both direct and
+   number of samples. For example,
+
+   .. code-block:: console
+
+     130: 7  foo:3  bar:2  baz:7
+
+   The above means that at relative line offset 130 there is a call
+   instruction that calls one of ``foo()``, ``bar()`` and ``baz()``,
+   with ``baz()`` being the relatively more frequently called target.
+
+
 Controlling Size of Debug Information
 -------------------------------------
 
 Debug info kind generated by Clang can be set by one of the flags listed
 below. If multiple flags are present, the last one is used.
 
 .. option:: -g0