(ToDo: document properly.)
It is possible to compile Glasgow Haskell programs so that they will count lots and lots of interesting things, e.g., number of updates, number of data constructors entered, etc., etc. We call this “ticky-ticky” profiling, because that's the sound a Sun4 makes when it is running up all those counters (slowly).
Ticky-ticky profiling is mainly intended for implementors; it is quite separate from the main “cost-centre” profiling system, intended for all users everywhere.
To be able to use ticky-ticky profiling, you will need to have built appropriate libraries and things when you made the system. See “Customising what libraries to build,” in the installation guide.
To get your compiled program to spit out the ticky-ticky numbers, use a -r RTS option. See Section 3.12.
Compiling your program with the -ticky switch yields an executable that performs these counts. Here is a sample ticky-ticky statistics file, generated by the invocation foo +RTS -rfoo.ticky.
foo +RTS -rfoo.ticky
ALLOCATIONS: 3964631 (11330900 words total: 3999476 admin, 6098829 goods, 1232595 slop)
total words: 2 3 4 5 6+
69647 ( 1.8%) function values 50.0 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
2382937 ( 60.1%) thunks 0.0 83.9 16.1 0.0 0.0
1477218 ( 37.3%) data values 66.8 33.2 0.0 0.0 0.0
0 ( 0.0%) big tuples
2 ( 0.0%) black holes 0.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
0 ( 0.0%) prim things
34825 ( 0.9%) partial applications 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 0.0
2 ( 0.0%) thread state objects 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0
Total storage-manager allocations: 3647137 (11882004 words)
[551104 words lost to speculative heap-checks]
STACK USAGE:
ENTERS: 9400092 of which 2005772 (21.3%) direct to the entry code
[the rest indirected via Node's info ptr]
1860318 ( 19.8%) thunks
3733184 ( 39.7%) data values
3149544 ( 33.5%) function values
[of which 1999880 (63.5%) bypassed arg-satisfaction chk]
348140 ( 3.7%) partial applications
308906 ( 3.3%) normal indirections
0 ( 0.0%) permanent indirections
RETURNS: 5870443
2137257 ( 36.4%) from entering a new constructor
[the rest from entering an existing constructor]
2349219 ( 40.0%) vectored [the rest unvectored]
RET_NEW: 2137257: 32.5% 46.2% 21.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
RET_OLD: 3733184: 2.8% 67.9% 29.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
RET_UNBOXED_TUP: 2: 0.0% 0.0%100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
RET_VEC_RETURN : 2349219: 0.0% 0.0%100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
UPDATE FRAMES: 2241725 (0 omitted from thunks)
SEQ FRAMES: 1
CATCH FRAMES: 1
UPDATES: 2241725
0 ( 0.0%) data values
34827 ( 1.6%) partial applications
[2 in place, 34825 allocated new space]
2206898 ( 98.4%) updates to existing heap objects (46 by squeezing)
UPD_CON_IN_NEW: 0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
UPD_PAP_IN_NEW: 34825: 0 0 0 34825 0 0 0 0 0
NEW GEN UPDATES: 2274700 ( 99.9%)
OLD GEN UPDATES: 1852 ( 0.1%)
Total bytes copied during GC: 190096
**************************************************
3647137 ALLOC_HEAP_ctr
11882004 ALLOC_HEAP_tot
69647 ALLOC_FUN_ctr
69647 ALLOC_FUN_adm
69644 ALLOC_FUN_gds
34819 ALLOC_FUN_slp
34831 ALLOC_FUN_hst_0
34816 ALLOC_FUN_hst_1
0 ALLOC_FUN_hst_2
0 ALLOC_FUN_hst_3
0 ALLOC_FUN_hst_4
2382937 ALLOC_UP_THK_ctr
0 ALLOC_SE_THK_ctr
308906 ENT_IND_ctr
0 E!NT_PERM_IND_ctr requires +RTS -Z
[... lots more info omitted ...]
0 GC_SEL_ABANDONED_ctr
0 GC_SEL_MINOR_ctr
0 GC_SEL_MAJOR_ctr
0 GC_FAILED_PROMOTION_ctr
47524 GC_WORDS_COPIED_ctr |
The formatting of the information above the row of asterisks is subject to change, but hopefully provides a useful human-readable summary. Below the asterisks all counters maintained by the ticky-ticky system are dumped, in a format intended to be machine-readable: zero or more spaces, an integer, a space, the counter name, and a newline.
In fact, not all counters are necessarily dumped; compile- or run-time flags can render certain counters invalid. In this case, either the counter will simply not appear, or it will appear with a modified counter name, possibly along with an explanation for the omission (notice ENT_PERM_IND_ctr appears with an inserted ! above). Software analysing this output should always check that it has the counters it expects. Also, beware: some of the counters can have large values!