This patch changes the output format of the main benchmark output file
(bench.out) to an extensible format. I chose JSON over XML because in
addition to being extensible, it is also not too verbose.
Additionally it has good support in python.
The significant change I have made in terms of functionality is to put
timing information as an attribute in JSON instead of a string and to
do that, there is a separate program that prints out a JSON snippet
mentioning the type of timing (hp_timing or clock_gettime). The mean
timing has now changed from iterations per unit to actual timing per
iteration.
The TIMING_INIT macro currently sets the number of loop iterations
to 1000, which limits usefulness. Make the argument a clock
resolution value and multiply by 1000 in bench-skeleton.c instead
to allow easier reuse.
ChangeLog:
2013-09-11 Will Newton <will.newton@linaro.org>
* benchtests/bench-timing.h (TIMING_INIT): Rename ITERS
parameter to RES. Remove hardcoded 1000 value.
* benchtests/bench-skeleton.c (main): Pass RES parameter
to TIMING_INIT and multiply result by 1000.
Switch the string benchmarks to using bench-timing.h instead
of hp-timing.h directly. This allows the string benchmarks to
be run usefully on architectures such as ARM that do not have
support for hp-timing.h.
In order to do this the tests have been changed from timing each
individual call and picking the lowest execution time recorded to
timing a number of calls and taking the mean execution time.
ChangeLog:
2013-09-04 Will Newton <will.newton@linaro.org>
* benchtests/bench-timing.h (TIMING_PRINT_MEAN): New macro.
* benchtests/bench-string.h: Include bench-timing.h instead
of including hp-timing.h directly. (INNER_LOOP_ITERS): New
define. (HP_TIMING_BEST): Delete macro. (test_init): Remove
call to HP_TIMING_DIFF_INIT.
* benchtests/bench-memccpy.c: Use bench-timing.h macros
instead of hp-timing.h macros.
* benchtests/bench-memchr.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-memcmp.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-memcpy.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-memmem.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-memmove.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-memset.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-rawmemchr.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcasecmp.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcasestr.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcat.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strchr.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcmp.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcpy.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strcpy_chk.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strlen.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strncasecmp.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strncat.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strncmp.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strncpy.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strnlen.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strpbrk.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strrchr.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strspn.c: Likewise.
* benchtests/bench-strstr.c: Likewise.
HP_TIMING uses native timestamping instructions if available, thus
greatly reducing the overhead of recording start and end times for
function calls. For architectures that don't have HP_TIMING
available, we fall back to the clock_gettime bits. One may also
override this by invoking the benchmark as follows:
make USE_CLOCK_GETTIME=1 bench
and get the benchmark results using clock_gettime. One has to do
`make bench-clean` to ensure that the benchmark programs are rebuilt.
