What is the meaning of perf script output?

Question

I used the perf script command to view the result of the perf.data file, but I don't really understand what each column means. For example, if I have the following result:

perf  3198 [000] 13156.201238: bus-cycles:  ffffffff81086e90 resched_task

perf  3198 [000] 13156.201267: instructions:  ffffffff811868e9 do_vfs_ioctl

What are the values 3198, [000], 13156.201238 referring to?

Answer 1

It is output from the default list of --fields ( -F is equivalent ), it looks like pid, cpu and time from the list of the available fields. You can verify that using the

perf script -F pid,cpu,time

if it will have the same first fields in output.

If not, there is probably no better way than to try the other fields from manual page (there is no good documentation).