Hello everybody

I have written a program for linux, that anybody who is interested in the PD code base might find
useful .. basically a 'C' function tracer. PD vanilla has more than 800 functions alone! It's often
difficult to comprehend as functions are often called indirectly for several reasons. It has a gui that's
written in tcl/tk as is PD, and the tracing does not need any special kernel mods (uses ptrace system call)

Start up (as in the README), and one can put objects, turn on DSP, click 'bangs' etc. and then stop the tracing and see what's been going on

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace-0.5.tgz

By the way, I forgot to say that although debugging symbols are't required, it won't work with a
completely stripped executable.

Just out of interest, I managed to embed the tk script into an elf binary file, so only one file is necessary.
I also folded the readme into the help menu

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

The executable in the last post uses tcl/tk 8.4.
For those of you who use tcl/tk 8.5, it's below

...

It would be nice to have functions from the externals to be included in the trace. This means that the
symbols for them have to be loaded into the tracer in some way .. I'm working on it

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

The executable in the last post uses tcl/tk 8.4.
For those of you who use tcl/tk 8.5, it's below

...

It would be nice to have functions from the externals to be included in the trace. This means that the
symbols for them have to be loaded into the tracer in some way .. I'm working on it

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Some progress .. I've got it reporting functions from externals.

I'll post the source later, as I'm tired and retiring to my bed
For those who are interested, there's an example output below..
Naturally, it can be read on OSX, Windows & Linux .. hmm .. only a text file :-D
Good night!

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/call-graph.txt

Only x86-32 for now, I'm afraid..

I've removed the requirement for the 'bfd libs', though .. only needs tcl/tk
Oh .. and Linux/Gnu

Still a work in progress

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Only x86-32 for now, I'm afraid..

I've removed the requirement for the 'bfd libs', though .. only needs tcl/tk
Oh .. and Linux/Gnu

Still a work in progress

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Hi Moog1,

Today I'm finally back at my GNU/Linux machine and first thing I wanted to do is try your ftrace tool. Downloaded tar file from your recent post but archive manager doesn't recognize it. Tried the binary together with ftrace.tk from the first version instead.

Executable flag was not yet set in the binary file. The program wants to use libtcl8.4.so and libtk8.4.so, these files are installed on my computer but with slightly different names. After creating symlinks, yes, there it goes... ftrace.

Unbelievable so many function calls Pd does while 'simply' putting a toggle on a canvas. Pd is of course constantly polling for all sorts of data.

Moog1, do you know which symbols are in the list 'active'? To me, it seems that all symbols of core Pd are there, even when not called during the time when the process was attached to ftrace. Anyway, if you know what to look for, the area of interest can be found.

Nice tool! Congratulations.

Katja

@katjav said:

Hi Moog1,

.. it seems that all symbols of core Pd are there,
Katja

Yes .. that's the idea, and at present, the 'manage-symbols' doesn't unset the breakpoints,
just removes them from the display..
Well .. it seemed to be working and stable, and that was pretty tricky .. so I thought I'd leave
well alone

Funny about that src-archive (0.8) .. I've uploaded it again, as it reported not to be a tar-archive
Hmmm..

Edit: Seems the forum software doesn't like .tar.gz
I've renamed them .tgz and all seems fine now

Recently, I have been struggling on the 'programitic' side
ie. binary file semantics .. detecting externals, symbols .. stabilitywith 'ptrace' etc.

I decided that the 'gui' lagged behind, and so have made a few changes..

Firstly, I've added a search toolbar with incremental up/down
Secondly, the disabled symbols/functions now have their 'state' saved between sessions,
as it's irritating to disable dozens of symbols time & again

And finally, when running the trace, it stops itself automatically after around 30 seconds, as
a precaution, although most distros clean the 'tmp' directory (where the trace file accumulates
as ftrace.out)

So .. ftrace-0.9 below :-D
Katjav .. I know when you download a binary file, it lose its exec permissions (on unix) .. all you need to do is put them back!
ie. with a file-manager, or on the command-line, 'chmod 755 ftrace'
( the 'tk file' has been embedded )

I would be interested to know if anybody has trouble with externals being detected ..
..or any other problems..
thanks.

EDIT: Found a bug in disabling symbols .. updated file below

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Dear oh dear :/
.. where to start

Well, I was thinking "that's it", and back to external devel, and I found that my functions weren't all showing up..
Ah! It's to do with the 'static' word .. they don't show up as global symbols, of course.

Fiddled around a bit (phew!), and now they all show up!
The external(s) should not be loaded before the trace is started, so:-

1. start up pd
2. attach it and start running the trace
3. open your patch
4. do any interaction with the patch you wish
5. stop the trace

..and analyse

I've also left PD itself reporting local variables atm, over 2000 symbols now
That's because the static variables in the builtin objects are also included .. interesting..

Ftrace0.95 below

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Dear oh dear :/
.. where to start

Well, I was thinking "that's it", and back to external devel, and I found that my functions weren't all showing up..
Ah! It's to do with the 'static' word .. they don't show up as global symbols, of course.

Fiddled around a bit (phew!), and now they all show up!
The external(s) should not be loaded before the trace is started, so:-

1. start up pd
2. attach it and start running the trace
3. open your patch
4. do any interaction with the patch you wish
5. stop the trace

..and analyse

I've also left PD itself reporting local variables atm, over 2000 symbols now
That's because the static variables in the builtin objects are also included .. interesting..

Ftrace0.95 below

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/ftrace

Well... accidentally I reach this thread today, an hour ago. But now, I'm thinking that maybe, this program could help me.

I have a big patch and a cheap USB soundcard. When the patch starts, it takes 10-28 seconds to be ready. In that moment, the soundcard mic makes a static noise. I can mute it and unmute it when it is ready-to-use... but sometimes, it takes 12 secondes... sometimes, 20... others, 26...

For the moment, I don't know how to know that duration early. Maybe this program tell me what the soundcard is doing at that time. Could it?

And, maybe... I can know how much time I have to delay the mic unmute.

Another suggestion? The soundcard is an Encore ENMAB-8CM.