Re: [RFC] Oprof_start GUI: port to pure Qt4 & features extension

[Maynard J. <may...@us...>]

On 06/29/2013 12:52 PM, Gilles Allard wrote:
> The purpose of this RFC is to propose the evolution of oprof_start GUI on 2 
> points:
Gilles,
Thank you for this proposal.  Although I'm not a GUI user, I personally see no reason to move to qt4 now, since it's been available in distros for several years now.
> 
> o)  A port to pure Qt4, without Qt3Support. As a consequence, it will not be 
> possible to build it using Qt3. The "--enable-gui=qt3" option of configure is 
> removed; the options "--enable-gui=qt4" and "--enable-gui=yes" are now 
> equivalent.
> 
> oo)  oprof_start will be able to run either "opcontrol" or "operf".
> 
> The user can access 2 "profiling modes" through a "Mode settings" button and 
> its sub-menu. The default profiling mode is currently set to "Opcontrol".
The default mode should be 'operf', unless you have a very convincing argument for the legacy 'opcontrol' mode.
> 
> The appearence of the main window is modified : all the settings common to   
> both modes are gathered in the "Setting" page along with the list of available 
> events.
> 
> Each mode has its own private page.
> Only the page associated to the current profiling mode is visible and switching 
> from one mode to the other is only possible if the profiler is not running.
> Each page shows all the available :
> 
>         o)	"Opcontrol" mode : the profiling parameters of the previous GUI	
> release are available without any modification.
> 
>         o)	"Operf" mode : the following settings are available :
> 
>                  --append,   --callgraph,   --separate-cpu,
>                  --separate-thread,   --system-wide
I presume the default for all of these options is "false".
> 
>                  --session-dir, --verbose and --vmlinux settings are sent to 
> the common page as explain above.
Unfortunately, the "--verbose" option is not standard across the three tools -- opcontrol, operf, and ocount.  Can that be handled seamlessly on the common page?

It would be good if the current session-dir could be highlighted in some way, so that when the user runs post-processing tools (e.g, opreport), they'll know to either run the tool in the appropriate directory or specify --session-dir appropriately.

> 
>                 --pid, --system-wide and a given user application are mutually 
> exclusive
> 
>                  --pid argument can be entered through a dialog showing all 
> the processes running when GUI is launched.
> 
> A new config file, the path of which is "$HOME/.oprofile/operfrc" is created to 
> be used by operf. It is very similar to "daemonrc"; but "operfrc" is not 
> currently merged with "daemonrc". The user application ( if any ) is saved in 
> this file and will be the default application on the next run.
What other data would be kept in the operfrc file?  I can see saving the vmlinux filename, and perhaps session-dir.

> 
> All the other tools ( and libraries ) in the Oprofile package are kept 
> unchanged.
> 
> ooo) This proposed GUI release can be easily extended to other profiling tools 
> such as the new "ocount" tool.
Nice.
Thanks again!

-Maynard
>