Read and parse perf.data

Question

I am recording a performance counters frm linux using the command perf record.

I want to use the result perf.data as an input to other programming apps. Do you know how shall I read and parse the data in perf.data?

Answer 1

There is builtin perf.data parser and printer in perf tool of linux tools with subcommand "script".

To convert perf.data file

perf script > perf.data.txt

To convert output of perf record in other file (perf record -o filename.data) use -i option:

perf script -i filename.data > filename.data.txt

perf script is documented at man perf-script, available online at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/perf-script.1.html

   perf-script - Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display
   trace output
This command reads the input file and displays the trace recorded.
   'perf script' to see a detailed trace of the workload that was
   recorded.

Output of perf script are ASCII text readable by human. But they may be not easy to be parsed by scripts. perf script -D will show how individual events are stored in hex.