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? Is there a way to transform it to .text file or .csv?

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.

Answer 2

The quipper sub-project of https://github.com/google/perf_data_converter can parse perf.data files.