OlivierLi / instrumentsToPprof

InstrumentsToPprof

This is a tool used to convert performance profiles from Xcode's Instruments tool on macOS to pprof.

Getting started

First clone the repo,

$ git clone https://github.com/google/instrumentsToPprof.git

The tool requires Go, which can be downloaded at the Go homepage

instrumentsToPprof can be installed to the GOPATH using

go install github.com/google/instrumentsToPprof

or run directly in the repo using

go run main.go

Producing pprof from deep copy

The tool's input is the copied data from Deep Copy inside Instruments. The Deep Copy must be from the Time Profile tool in instruments, and the selection roots must be processes.

To get started, make a trace, either using xctrace or in the Instruments app.

$ xcrun -r xctrace record --template 'Time Profiler' --all-processes --time-limit 5s --output 'profile.trace'

Open the trace in the Instruments tool, and select the process that you want to have converted. Multiple processes may be selected using Cmd+Shift+C. Then get the text data using Deep Copy in the Edit menu.

Paste the deep copy to a text file and run instrumentsToPprof which produces a file profile.pb.gz. This file can analyzed using the google/pprof tool.

$ instrumentsToPprof deep_copy_paste.txt

Alternatively, one can produce the profile.pb.gz by piping the clipboard directly into instrumentsToPprof

$ pbpaste | instrumentsToPpof

Producing a pprof from sample

instrumentsToPprof also supports output from the sample command on Mac.

To get a sample, run

$ sample <pid> -f <output-file>

and to produce a pprof from that sample, use the --format flag

$ instrumentsToPprof --format=sample <output-file>

Disclaimer

This is not an officially supported Google product.