coz 0.1.3

Rust support for the `coz` Causal Profiler: https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz
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# coz-rs

Rust support for the [`coz` Causal Profiler](https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz)

[![Documentation](https://docs.rs/coz/badge.svg)](https://docs.rs/coz)

## Usage

First, follow the instructions in [`coz`] to install the `coz` command.

[`coz`]: https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/#installation

Next, `coz` is a profiler that, for the best results, typically requires
source-level modifications of your code. To do this first add this to your
`Cargo.toml`

```toml
[dependencies]
coz = "0.1"
```

Then you'll want to either add throughput or latency tracepoints. More
information on this [can be found
upstream](https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/#profiling-modes). If you have
something you'd wish would execute more often, you can add:

```rust
fn main() {
    loop {
        // ...

        // For example you wish this `loop` executed more iterations
        coz::progress!(); // equivalent of `COZ_PROGRESS`
    }
}
```

Note that `coz::progress!("name")` is the equivalent of `COZ_PROGRESS_NAMED` as
well.

If you'd like to profile the latency of an operation you can instead use:

```rust
// Boy I wish this function executed more quickly...
fn foo() {
    coz::begin!("foo");

    // ...

    coz::end!("foo");
}
```

After you've instrumented your code, you need to also ensure that you're
compiling with DWARF debug information. To do this you'll want to configure
`Cargo.toml` again:

```toml
[profile.release]
debug = 1
```

Next up you'll build your application with `cargo build --release`, and then
finally you can run it with `coz run --- ./target/release/$your_binary`.

## Caveats

Known caveats so far to generate a report that collects information are:

* Rust programs by default segfault when run with `coz` with an issue related to
  [plasma-umass/coz#110](https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/issues/110). Rust
  programs set up a `sigaltstack` to run segfault handlers to print "you ran out
  of stack", but this alternate stack is too small to run the `SIGPROF` handler
  that `coz` installs. To handle this this crate provides a `coz::thread_init()`
  function which will increase the `sigaltstack` size that Rust installs by
  default to something large enough to run `coz`. If you see segfaults, or
  corrupt reports, you may wish to manually call `coz::thread_init()` instead of
  waiting for this crate to automatically call it for you.

* Debug information looks to be critical to get a report from `coz`. Make sure
  that your program is compiled with at least line-table information (`debug =
  1`) to ensure you get the best experience using `coz`.

* Currently `coz` only works on Linux, and while this crate should compile on
  all platforms it only actually does something on Linux.

## Examples

You can find an example toy program at `examples/toy.rs` in this repository, and
we can execute it with `coz`:

```
$ cargo build --release
$ coz run --- ./target/release/examples/toy
...
[profiler.cpp:75] Starting profiler thread
$
```

That should generate `profile.coz` in the current directory, which if you plot
that should look something like this:

![plot of `toy.rs`](toy.png)

Note that I'm still learning myself the best sorts of applications to run on as
well as the best sorts of questions to ask `coz` and where to put
latency/throughput points. If you've got ideas or good examples, please feel
free to add them here!