NAME
dip - Dynamic instrumentation like DTrace, using aspects
SYNOPSIS
$ dip -e 'aspect Profiler => call qr/^Person::set_/' myapp.pl
$ dip -s toolkit/count_new.dip -- -S myapp.pl
$ dip -e 'before { count("constructor", ARGS(1), ustack(5)); $c{total}++ }
call "URI::new"' test.pl
$ cat quant-requests.dip
# quantize request handling time, separated by request URI
before { $ts_start = [gettimeofday] }
call 'Dancer::Handler::handle_request';
after { quantize ARGS(1)->request_uri => 10**6*tv_interval($ts_start) }
call qr/Dancer::Handler::handle_request/;
$ dip -s request-quant.dip test.pl
...
/
value ------------------ Distribution ------------------ count
1024 | 0
2048 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 95
4096 |@@ 4
8192 | 0
16384 |@ 1
32768 | 0
/login
value ------------------ Distribution ------------------ count
512 | 0
1024 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 70
2048 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 30
4096 | 0
DESCRIPTION
"dip" is a dynamic instrumentation framework for troubleshooting Perl
programs in real time. "dip" can provide fine-grained information, such
as a log of the arguments with which a specific function is being
called.
Conceptually, "dip" sits on top of Aspect and uses pointcuts and advice
- to use Aspect-oriented programming jargon - to define dynamic
instrumentation. These instruments are applied to the program from the
outside, without having to change the program code at all. While most
"dip" scripts will consist of aspect-oriented instrumentation, they can
also use the full power of Perl.
"dip" aims to bring some of the power of DTrace to perl. Therefore it is
useful to stick to DTrace terminology. "dip" pointcuts resemble DTrace
"probes"; "dip" advice resembles DTrace "actions".
Whenever the condition for a probe is met, the associated action is
executed; the probe "fires". A typical probe might fire when a certain
function is entered or exited. The probe's action may analyze the
run-time situation by accessing the call stack and context variables and
evaluating expressions; it can then print out or log some information,
record it in a database, or modify variables - an action is, after all,
pure Perl code. Using variables allows probes to pass information to
each other, allowing them to cooperatively analyze the correlation of
different events. For example, a probe that fires when a function is
entered could record the current time; another probe that fires when
that function is exited could record how much time the function took.
Because of the nature of Aspect-oriented programming in Perl, you only
pay for what you use. When probes are defined, all existing possible
locations for running the action are examined, and the probe is only
activated for those locations that match the probe's condition.
Output
At the end of your program run, during "END" time, all aggregators - see
below - will dump their results. Also any other hashes you have written
to in your dip scripts will be dumped.
For example, if you simply wanted to know which kinds of objects have
been instantiated at least once, you could use:
before { $c{total}++ } call qr/::new$/
and then %c will be dumped.
Aggregating functions
"dip" provides aggregating functions that help in understanding a set of
data. You can keep counts of occurrences, or quantize data, much like
with DTrace.
The "quantize" aggregating function generates a power-of-two
distribution - see its documentation.
FUNCTIONS
import
Remembers the dip script given on the command-line so we can run it in
"instrument()". Complains if there was no dip script. The "--delay"
option is passed in this way as well.
instrument
Evaluates the dip script we remembered in "import()". Dies if there was
a problem evaluating it.
Normally this function will be called automatically during "INIT" time,
but you can delay by giving the "--delay" option to "dip"; you would use
this if your program loads other code at runtime - using "do()", for
example - that needs to be instrumented as well. In that case you have
manually activate the instrumentation using:
$dip::dip && $dip::dip->();
run
Convenience function that takes a filename and runs the file via "do()".
This is what "dip -s" uses. For example:
dip -s myscript.dip myapp.pl
is turned into:
dip -e 'run q!$file!' myapp.pl
and ultimately
perl -Mdip='run q!$file!' myapp.pl
ustack
Returns a concise stack trace. Takes an argument of how many levels deep
the stack trace should be; the default is 20 levels. Stack frames that
point to a package name in the "Aspect::" or "dip" namespace are
omitted.
Example: count how many times a "XML::LibXML::NodeList" object is
created, and keep a separate counter for each place it is created from,
remembering three stack frames for each place:
before { count "constructor", ARGS(0), ustack(3) }
call 'XML::LibXML::NodeList::new'
cluck
Returns what Carp's "cluck()" would return, again with "Aspect::" and
"dip" namespaces omitted.
longmess
Returns what Carp's "longmess()" would return, again with "Aspect::" and
"dip" namespaces omitted.
count
This aggregator function takes a counter name and a value and keeps a
count of how often this value was seen for this counter.
You can pass several values; they will be concatenated using newlines.
See the example for "ustack()".
Example: For each class, count how many objects are created. Also keep a
total count.
before { count("constructor", ARGS(0)); $c{total}++ }
call qr/::new$/
dump_var
Convenience method to dump a variable like Data::Dumper does.
Example: Show all requests a Dancer web application handles:
before { dump_var ARGS(1) }
call 'Dancer::Handler::handle_request'
rtrim
Convenience function to right-trim a string.
rref
Convenience function that, if given a string - for example, a package
name -, just returns the string, but if given an object, it returns that
object's class.
Useful if objects you want to instrument are sometimes created by
calling "new()" on existing objects:
before { count("constructor", rref ARGS(0)) } call qr/::new$/
ARGS
Convenience function to access the arguments of a function that you are
instrumenting. ARGS(0), for example, returns the first argument. You can
use several argument indices; in this case the indicated function
arguments will be stringified and concatenated with a space.
ARGS(0) is equivalent to "$_->{args}[0]"; "ARGS(1,2)" is equivalent to
"join ' ' => ARGS(0), ARGS(1)" - see Aspect for the kind of context
information that is passed to advice code.
For example:
# print SQL statements as they are prepared by DBI
before { print ARGS(1) } call qr/DBI::.*::prepare/
quantize
This aggregator function takes a name, or an reference to a list of
names, and a value. For each name, it keeps track of a power-of-two
frequency distribution of the values of the specified expressions.
Increments the value in the highest power-of-two bucket that is less
than the specified expression.
p
The "p()" function from Data::Printer is available to dip scripts.
Example:
# Print a stack trace every time the name is changed,
# except when reading from the database.
before { print longmess(p $_->{args}[1]) if $_->{args}[1] }
call "MyObj::name" & !cflow("MyObj::read")
gettimeofday
The "gettimeofday()" function from Time::HiRes is available to dip
scripts.
tv_interval
The "tv_interval()" function from Time::HiRes is available to dip
scripts.
AUTHOR
The following person is the author of all the files provided in this
distribution unless explicitly noted otherwise.
Marcel Gruenauer <marcel@cpan.org>, http://perlservices.at
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
The following copyright notice applies to all the files provided in this
distribution, including binary files, unless explicitly noted otherwise.
This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Marcel Gruenauer.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.