[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Geneviève Bastien]

Hello all,

Short question:

As we develop analyses in TMF for LTTng traces, we'd like to unit test 
them with very specific sequences of events, something no real-life 
trace can provide. We'd like to build our own traces manually.

Does a human read-writeable format already exist to work with CTF traces 
or convert from/to CTF traces? I heard of a few CTF trace generators, 
some which haven't been rebased in a while. What's their status? 
Anything that answers our need there?

Thanks,

==================
Detailed specification of what I'm looking for and why:

* In TMF, analyses use event requests and they handle events. It does 
not matter at all whether the event came from a CTF binary stream or 
from a text file, as long as they have the same name and fields, it will 
be handled the same.

* Also, while we may want to hand make a full test trace, we may also 
wish to take (part of) a real life CTF trace, convert it to a human 
read-writeable format, tweak it to our needs and... as far as TMF is 
concerned, we'll be perfectly happy with this format, but it may 
eventually be desirable to convert it back to a CTF trace.

* XML-defined analyses are about to make it into TMF master. That means 
users will be able to develop in XML their own state providers, but 
eventually also their own views, filters, analyses, etc. Before trying 
them on real traces, it must be possible to test them on controlled 
hand-made traces. So that trace format is not just a feature for unit 
tests, it should be made available in the main TMF for users to use.

* We must keep in mind that users of this format may not have access to 
the complete LTTng toolchain, or even to a linux command line as they 
may be working... on Windows! That's even more true now that work is 
being done to convert Windows traces to CTF format. So the solution must 
be completely standalone in TMF.

* In a quick prototype last week, I came up with this format for the 
human read-writeable test traces:

<trace>
<event>
<timestamp value="1" />
<eventName value="A" />
<source value="0" /> /** the cpu */
<field name="b" value="1" type="int" />
<field name="c" value="abcdef" type="string" />
</event>
</trace>

Why XML? Because it's easy to validate with a XSD and we can use 
existing tool to automatically generate from this XSD a user interface 
to edit the events. But that's just a suggestion.

* Lastly and not least, whatever we end up implementing in TMF must use 
or at least play nice with other tools around CTF that do more or less 
the same thing. I wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel here.

Any thoughts?  Any thing I should look at?

Thanks,
Genevi?ve

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
> To: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 9:59:34 AM
> Subject: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Short question:
> 
> As we develop analyses in TMF for LTTng traces, we'd like to unit test
> them with very specific sequences of events, something no real-life
> trace can provide. We'd like to build our own traces manually.
> 
> Does a human read-writeable format already exist to work with CTF traces
> or convert from/to CTF traces? I heard of a few CTF trace generators,
> some which haven't been rebased in a while. What's their status?
> Anything that answers our need there?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ==================
> Detailed specification of what I'm looking for and why:
> 
> * In TMF, analyses use event requests and they handle events. It does
> not matter at all whether the event came from a CTF binary stream or
> from a text file, as long as they have the same name and fields, it will
> be handled the same.
> 
> * Also, while we may want to hand make a full test trace, we may also
> wish to take (part of) a real life CTF trace, convert it to a human
> read-writeable format, tweak it to our needs and... as far as TMF is
> concerned, we'll be perfectly happy with this format, but it may
> eventually be desirable to convert it back to a CTF trace.
> 
> * XML-defined analyses are about to make it into TMF master. That means
> users will be able to develop in XML their own state providers, but
> eventually also their own views, filters, analyses, etc. Before trying
> them on real traces, it must be possible to test them on controlled
> hand-made traces. So that trace format is not just a feature for unit
> tests, it should be made available in the main TMF for users to use.
> 
> * We must keep in mind that users of this format may not have access to
> the complete LTTng toolchain, or even to a linux command line as they
> may be working... on Windows! That's even more true now that work is
> being done to convert Windows traces to CTF format. So the solution must
> be completely standalone in TMF.
> 
> * In a quick prototype last week, I came up with this format for the
> human read-writeable test traces:
> 
> <trace>
> <event>
> <timestamp value="1" />
> <eventName value="A" />
> <source value="0" /> /** the cpu */
> <field name="b" value="1" type="int" />
> <field name="c" value="abcdef" type="string" />
> </event>
> </trace>
> 
> Why XML? Because it's easy to validate with a XSD and we can use
> existing tool to automatically generate from this XSD a user interface
> to edit the events. But that's just a suggestion.
> 
> * Lastly and not least, whatever we end up implementing in TMF must use
> or at least play nice with other tools around CTF that do more or less
> the same thing. I wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel here.
> 
> Any thoughts?  Any thing I should look at?

Hi Genevi?ve,

J?r?mie will probably have more to add when he gets back from FOSDEM, but
I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
(currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:

- A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
  to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
- A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.

You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.

Another possibility is that the XML description also allows describing
what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For instance, if you
have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF converter.

Indeed, having this kind of infrastructure for unit-testing is going to
be *extremely* useful to validate the state system.

Thanks!

Mathieu


> 
> Thanks,
> Genevi?ve
> 
> _______________________________________________
> lttng-dev mailing list
> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Michel Dagenais]

> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
> 
> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
>   to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.

Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.

> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.

The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.

> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For instance, if you
> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
> converter.

Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.

In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML dump of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats other than CTF.

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais@polymtl.ca>
> To: "Mathieu Desnoyers" <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org, "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng at versatic.net>
> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 11:00:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
> 
> 
> > I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
> > (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
> > trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
> > 
> > - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
> >   to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
> > - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
> 
> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
> 
> > You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
> > then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
> 
> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
> 
> > Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
> > describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
> > instance, if you
> > have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
> > be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
> > converter.
> 
> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to
> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We
> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.

I very much like this idea. Indeed, with a CTF-to-Python-statements converter,
we can easily tweak the resulting python script to add events, modify events,
and even use loops and re-use functions. This would be extremely useful for
unit-testing the state system, and would allow re-use (import) of patterns
more easily than with XML descriptions.

Thanks,

Mathieu

> 
> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML dump of
> events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats other
> than CTF.
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Geneviève Bastien]

Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my 
concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has 
access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to 
XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a 
python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.

All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be used. 
I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have visual 
editors.


On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>
>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
>>    to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>
>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>
>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For instance, if you
>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>> converter.
> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.
Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and 
convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some 
scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a 
few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or convert 
it to CTF.

Thanks,
Genevi?ve
>
> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML dump of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats other than CTF.

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers" <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
> 
> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
> 
> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be used.
> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have visual
> editors.

Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test suites.
It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste huge
XML files.

I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main arguments
for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?

Thanks,

Mathieu

> 
> 
> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
> >> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
> >> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
> >> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
> >>
> >> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
> >>    to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
> >> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
> > Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
> >
> >> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
> >> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
> > The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
> >
> >> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
> >> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
> >> instance, if you
> >> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
> >> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
> >> converter.
> > Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to
> > "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We
> > could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.
> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or convert
> it to CTF.
> 
> Thanks,
> Genevi?ve
> >
> > In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML dump
> > of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
> > other than CTF.
> 
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Geneviève Bastien]

On 02/03/2014 12:16 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
>> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers" <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
>> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
>>
>> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
>> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
>> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
>> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
>> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
>>
>> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be used.
>> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have visual
>> editors.
> Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test suites.
> It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
> allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste huge
> XML files.
>
> I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
> for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main arguments
> for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?
It is not just for test suite. XML-defined analysis will need test 
traces as well, and that is in main TMF, not in unit tests (one idea of 
the XML analysis is to allow end-user to develop their own analysis 
without writing a single line of code or requiring the TMF development 
environment). And the user of these analysis and test traces may not 
have access to babeltrace or even to a Linux command line.

Thanks,
Genevi?ve
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mathieu
>
>>
>> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>>>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>>>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
>>>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>>>
>>>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
>>>>     to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>>>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
>>> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>>>
>>>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like, and
>>>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
>>> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>>>
>>>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>>>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
>>>> instance, if you
>>>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
>>>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>>>> converter.
>>> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to
>>> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We
>>> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.
>> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
>> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
>> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
>> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or convert
>> it to CTF.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Genevi?ve
>>> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML dump
>>> of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
>>> other than CTF.
>>

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Jérémie Galarneau]

Hi Genevi?ve,

I wonder if we are not overly complicating things here... The Python
bindings seem to address your immediate testing concerns and will let
you produce test traces with minimal effort.
While I agree that it doesn't solve the problem of testing analysis on
Windows, I must ask if this really is a primary concern at this point.

I would personally start by writing tests in Python using the
CTF-Writer bindings and then, as the analysis feature gains traction,
work with users to determine the best testing strategy. I somehow
doubt that having an external dependancy on Babeltrace would really be
a problem to these power users...

Sorry for the late reply,
J?r?mie

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
<gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
> On 02/03/2014 12:16 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>
>>> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
>>> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers"
>>> <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
>>> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
>>>
>>> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
>>> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
>>> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
>>> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
>>> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
>>>
>>> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be used.
>>> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have visual
>>> editors.
>>
>> Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test
>> suites.
>> It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
>> allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste huge
>> XML files.
>>
>> I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
>> for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main
>> arguments
>> for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?
>
> It is not just for test suite. XML-defined analysis will need test traces as
> well, and that is in main TMF, not in unit tests (one idea of the XML
> analysis is to allow end-user to develop their own analysis without writing
> a single line of code or requiring the TMF development environment). And the
> user of these analysis and test traces may not have access to babeltrace or
> even to a Linux command line.
>
> Thanks,
> Genevi?ve
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Mathieu
>>
>>>
>>> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>>>>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
>>>>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>>>>
>>>>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
>>>>>     to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>>>>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>>>>
>>>>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like,
>>>>> and
>>>>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
>>>>
>>>> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>>>>
>>>>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>>>>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
>>>>> instance, if you
>>>>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
>>>>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>>>>> converter.
>>>>
>>>> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to
>>>> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We
>>>> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.
>>>
>>> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
>>> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
>>> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
>>> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or convert
>>> it to CTF.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Genevi?ve
>>>>
>>>> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML
>>>> dump
>>>> of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
>>>> other than CTF.
>>>
>>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> lttng-dev mailing list
> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev



-- 
J?r?mie Galarneau
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Geneviève Bastien]

Hi Jeremie,

Thanks for your reply.

On 02/04/2014 11:19 AM, J?r?mie Galarneau wrote:
> Hi Genevi?ve,
>
> I wonder if we are not overly complicating things here... The Python
> bindings seem to address your immediate testing concerns and will let
> you produce test traces with minimal effort.
Do you have any information, links, examples how to use what exists in 
python to generate traces with minimal effort? Our very immediate need 
is actually to generate traces manually, because we don't need to know 
how to script in python to do this ;-) and we can manually modify the 
events. But since I have no idea (yet) what those python bindings do and 
how they do it, then maybe I miss something here.

Thanks,
Genevi?ve
> While I agree that it doesn't solve the problem of testing analysis on
> Windows, I must ask if this really is a primary concern at this point.
>
> I would personally start by writing tests in Python using the
> CTF-Writer bindings and then, as the analysis feature gains traction,
> work with users to determine the best testing strategy. I somehow
> doubt that having an external dependancy on Babeltrace would really be
> a problem to these power users...
>
> Sorry for the late reply,
> J?r?mie
>
> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
> <gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
>> On 02/03/2014 12:16 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
>>>> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers"
>>>> <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
>>>> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>>> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
>>>>
>>>> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
>>>> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
>>>> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
>>>> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
>>>> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
>>>>
>>>> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be used.
>>>> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have visual
>>>> editors.
>>> Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test
>>> suites.
>>> It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
>>> allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste huge
>>> XML files.
>>>
>>> I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
>>> for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main
>>> arguments
>>> for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?
>> It is not just for test suite. XML-defined analysis will need test traces as
>> well, and that is in main TMF, not in unit tests (one idea of the XML
>> analysis is to allow end-user to develop their own analysis without writing
>> a single line of code or requiring the TMF development environment). And the
>> user of these analysis and test traces may not have access to babeltrace or
>> even to a Linux command line.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Genevi?ve
>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Mathieu
>>>
>>>> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>>>>>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>>>>>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that cover
>>>>>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate format
>>>>>>      to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>>>>>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
>>>>> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>>>>>
>>>>>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
>>>>> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>>>>>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
>>>>>> instance, if you
>>>>>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it would
>>>>>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>>>>>> converter.
>>>>> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF" to
>>>>> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand. We
>>>>> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated events.
>>>> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
>>>> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
>>>> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
>>>> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or convert
>>>> it to CTF.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Genevi?ve
>>>>> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML
>>>>> dump
>>>>> of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
>>>>> other than CTF.
>>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> lttng-dev mailing list
>> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev
>
>

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Jérémie Galarneau]

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:35 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
<gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
> Hi Jeremie,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
>
> On 02/04/2014 11:19 AM, J?r?mie Galarneau wrote:
>>
>> Hi Genevi?ve,
>>
>> I wonder if we are not overly complicating things here... The Python
>> bindings seem to address your immediate testing concerns and will let
>> you produce test traces with minimal effort.
>
> Do you have any information, links, examples how to use what exists in
> python to generate traces with minimal effort? Our very immediate need is
> actually to generate traces manually, because we don't need to know how to
> script in python to do this ;-) and we can manually modify the events. But
> since I have no idea (yet) what those python bindings do and how they do it,
> then maybe I miss something here.
>

They are part of the current Babeltrace master branch and will be
included in the next release. An example script is available under
babeltrace/bindings/python/examples/ctf_writer.py.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,
J?r?mie

> Thanks,
> Genevi?ve
>
>> While I agree that it doesn't solve the problem of testing analysis on
>> Windows, I must ask if this really is a primary concern at this point.
>>
>> I would personally start by writing tests in Python using the
>> CTF-Writer bindings and then, as the analysis feature gains traction,
>> work with users to determine the best testing strategy. I somehow
>> doubt that having an external dependancy on Babeltrace would really be
>> a problem to these power users...
>>
>> Sorry for the late reply,
>> J?r?mie
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
>> <gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 02/03/2014 12:16 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>
>>>>> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
>>>>> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers"
>>>>> <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
>>>>> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>>>> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
>>>>>
>>>>> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
>>>>> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
>>>>> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
>>>>> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
>>>>> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
>>>>>
>>>>> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be
>>>>> used.
>>>>> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have
>>>>> visual
>>>>> editors.
>>>>
>>>> Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test
>>>> suites.
>>>> It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
>>>> allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste
>>>> huge
>>>> XML files.
>>>>
>>>> I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
>>>> for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main
>>>> arguments
>>>> for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?
>>>
>>> It is not just for test suite. XML-defined analysis will need test traces
>>> as
>>> well, and that is in main TMF, not in unit tests (one idea of the XML
>>> analysis is to allow end-user to develop their own analysis without
>>> writing
>>> a single line of code or requiring the TMF development environment). And
>>> the
>>> user of these analysis and test traces may not have access to babeltrace
>>> or
>>> even to a Linux command line.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Genevi?ve
>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Mathieu
>>>>
>>>>> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>>>>>>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that
>>>>>>> cover
>>>>>>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate
>>>>>>> format
>>>>>>>      to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>>>>>>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>>>>>>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
>>>>>>> instance, if you
>>>>>>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it
>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>>>>>>> converter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF"
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand.
>>>>>> We
>>>>>> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated
>>>>>> events.
>>>>>
>>>>> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
>>>>> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
>>>>> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
>>>>> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or
>>>>> convert
>>>>> it to CTF.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Genevi?ve
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML
>>>>>> dump
>>>>>> of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
>>>>>> other than CTF.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> lttng-dev mailing list
>>> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev
>>
>>
>>
>



-- 
J?r?mie Galarneau
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Geneviève Bastien]

By the way, after discussing with Julien, one thing I need to add to 
understand our point of view: In TMF, we use a custom XML format with 
the existing custom XML parser to parse an XML trace, so it's really 
straightforward to use those traces, we don't need to create a new 
parser for it.

Genevi?ve

On 02/04/2014 12:46 PM, J?r?mie Galarneau wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:35 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
> <gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
>> Hi Jeremie,
>>
>> Thanks for your reply.
>>
>>
>> On 02/04/2014 11:19 AM, J?r?mie Galarneau wrote:
>>> Hi Genevi?ve,
>>>
>>> I wonder if we are not overly complicating things here... The Python
>>> bindings seem to address your immediate testing concerns and will let
>>> you produce test traces with minimal effort.
>> Do you have any information, links, examples how to use what exists in
>> python to generate traces with minimal effort? Our very immediate need is
>> actually to generate traces manually, because we don't need to know how to
>> script in python to do this ;-) and we can manually modify the events. But
>> since I have no idea (yet) what those python bindings do and how they do it,
>> then maybe I miss something here.
>>
> They are part of the current Babeltrace master branch and will be
> included in the next release. An example script is available under
> babeltrace/bindings/python/examples/ctf_writer.py.
> Let me know if you have any questions.
>
> Regards,
> J?r?mie
>
>> Thanks,
>> Genevi?ve
>>
>>> While I agree that it doesn't solve the problem of testing analysis on
>>> Windows, I must ask if this really is a primary concern at this point.
>>>
>>> I would personally start by writing tests in Python using the
>>> CTF-Writer bindings and then, as the analysis feature gains traction,
>>> work with users to determine the best testing strategy. I somehow
>>> doubt that having an external dependancy on Babeltrace would really be
>>> a problem to these power users...
>>>
>>> Sorry for the late reply,
>>> J?r?mie
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Genevi?ve Bastien
>>> <gbastien+lttng at versatic.net> wrote:
>>>> On 02/03/2014 12:16 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>> From: "Genevi?ve Bastien" <gbastien+lttng@versatic.net>
>>>>>> To: "Michel Dagenais" <michel.dagenais at polymtl.ca>, "Mathieu Desnoyers"
>>>>>> <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
>>>>>> Cc: lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>>>>> Sent: Monday, February 3, 2014 12:05:38 PM
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ok, I'll wait for J?r?mie's answer for more details. As I said, my
>>>>>> concern is to have something fully standalone in TMF. But if one has
>>>>>> access to babeltrace and eventual plugins to read-write a CTF trace to
>>>>>> XML, then all the better. We could then import an XML generated by a
>>>>>> python script into TMF, edit it there and then use it to test analyses.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> All we have to settle on is the intermediate format that should be
>>>>>> used.
>>>>>> I'd go for XML because of the possibility to validate it and have
>>>>>> visual
>>>>>> editors.
>>>>> Michel's idea of going for Python seems even better to generate test
>>>>> suites.
>>>>> It would allow importing and combining test "patterns" very easily, thus
>>>>> allowing to create tests by construction without having to copy-paste
>>>>> huge
>>>>> XML files.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't clearly see why having external dependencies on other tools
>>>>> for a TMF CI test suite would be an issue. What would be the main
>>>>> arguments
>>>>> for having all those tests stand-alone in TMF for the test-suite ?
>>>> It is not just for test suite. XML-defined analysis will need test traces
>>>> as
>>>> well, and that is in main TMF, not in unit tests (one idea of the XML
>>>> analysis is to allow end-user to develop their own analysis without
>>>> writing
>>>> a single line of code or requiring the TMF development environment). And
>>>> the
>>>> user of these analysis and test traces may not have access to babeltrace
>>>> or
>>>> even to a Linux command line.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Genevi?ve
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Mathieu
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 02/03/2014 11:00 AM, Michel Dagenais wrote:
>>>>>>>> I would expect that the ctf writer API recently added to babeltrace
>>>>>>>> (currently in master branch), along with the Python bindings that
>>>>>>>> cover
>>>>>>>> trace read and write APIs, should allow you to implement things like:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> - A plugin to read a CTF trace, and output it in an intermediate
>>>>>>>> format
>>>>>>>>       to facilitate edits (e.g. XML as you propose),
>>>>>>>> - A plugin to read this XML format and output a CTF trace.
>>>>>>> Yes, this would indeed be extremely helpful, in XML and/or JSON.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You could also generate the XML trace completely by hand if you like,
>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> then convert it to CTF with the second plugin I'm relating to above.
>>>>>>> The likely scenario is to add a few events by hand.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Another possibility is that the XML description also allows
>>>>>>>> describing what the trace contains at a slightly higher level. For
>>>>>>>> instance, if you
>>>>>>>> have a periodic event happening for a certain amount of time, it
>>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>>> be described in XML, and then "generated" by the XML-to-CTF
>>>>>>>> converter.
>>>>>>> Do we want to describe this in XML or in Python? We could have "CTF"
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> "Python statements" generating XML. Then we could add loops by hand.
>>>>>>> We
>>>>>>> could also have CTF to XML, with hooks to merge Python generated
>>>>>>> events.
>>>>>> Indeed being able to script a trace would be extremely helpful and
>>>>>> convert it either directly to CTF or to the intermediate format. Some
>>>>>> scenarios for unit test would be to script a custom trace then change a
>>>>>> few events for the test purpose, then either import it in TMF or
>>>>>> convert
>>>>>> it to CTF.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Genevi?ve
>>>>>>> In addition, TMF may also want to offer similar functionality, an XML
>>>>>>> dump
>>>>>>> of events and an XML events reader. Indeed, TMF supports a few formats
>>>>>>> other than CTF.
>>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> lttng-dev mailing list
>>>> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
>>>> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev
>>>
>>>
>
>

[lttng-dev] Human read-writeable format for CTF traces

[Matthew Khouzam]

Hi Genevieve,
Would it be an interesting option to make a "metadata" that would parse
the xml? Just throwing another option into the mix.
Matthew
On 14-02-03 09:59 AM, Genevi?ve Bastien wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Short question:
>
> As we develop analyses in TMF for LTTng traces, we'd like to unit test
> them with very specific sequences of events, something no real-life
> trace can provide. We'd like to build our own traces manually.
>
> Does a human read-writeable format already exist to work with CTF
> traces or convert from/to CTF traces? I heard of a few CTF trace
> generators, some which haven't been rebased in a while. What's their
> status? Anything that answers our need there?
>
> Thanks,
>
> ==================
> Detailed specification of what I'm looking for and why:
>
> * In TMF, analyses use event requests and they handle events. It does
> not matter at all whether the event came from a CTF binary stream or
> from a text file, as long as they have the same name and fields, it
> will be handled the same.
>
> * Also, while we may want to hand make a full test trace, we may also
> wish to take (part of) a real life CTF trace, convert it to a human
> read-writeable format, tweak it to our needs and... as far as TMF is
> concerned, we'll be perfectly happy with this format, but it may
> eventually be desirable to convert it back to a CTF trace.
>
> * XML-defined analyses are about to make it into TMF master. That
> means users will be able to develop in XML their own state providers,
> but eventually also their own views, filters, analyses, etc. Before
> trying them on real traces, it must be possible to test them on
> controlled hand-made traces. So that trace format is not just a
> feature for unit tests, it should be made available in the main TMF
> for users to use.
>
> * We must keep in mind that users of this format may not have access
> to the complete LTTng toolchain, or even to a linux command line as
> they may be working... on Windows! That's even more true now that work
> is being done to convert Windows traces to CTF format. So the solution
> must be completely standalone in TMF.
>
> * In a quick prototype last week, I came up with this format for the
> human read-writeable test traces:
>
> <trace>
> <event>
> <timestamp value="1" />
> <eventName value="A" />
> <source value="0" /> /** the cpu */
> <field name="b" value="1" type="int" />
> <field name="c" value="abcdef" type="string" />
> </event>
> </trace>
>
> Why XML? Because it's easy to validate with a XSD and we can use
> existing tool to automatically generate from this XSD a user interface
> to edit the events. But that's just a suggestion.
>
> * Lastly and not least, whatever we end up implementing in TMF must
> use or at least play nice with other tools around CTF that do more or
> less the same thing. I wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel here.
>
> Any thoughts?  Any thing I should look at?
>
> Thanks,
> Genevi?ve
>
> _______________________________________________
> lttng-dev mailing list
> lttng-dev at lists.lttng.org
> http://lists.lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev