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runtime_control.xml
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<sect1 id="runtime-control">
<title>Running a compiled program</title>
<indexterm><primary>runtime control of Haskell programs</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>running, compiled program</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>RTS options</primary></indexterm>
<para>To make an executable program, the GHC system compiles your
code and then links it with a non-trivial runtime system (RTS),
which handles storage management, thread scheduling, profiling, and
so on.</para>
<para>
The RTS has a lot of options to control its behaviour. For
example, you can change the context-switch interval, the default
size of the heap, and enable heap profiling. These options can be
passed to the runtime system in a variety of different ways; the
next section (<xref linkend="setting-rts-options" />) describes
the various methods, and the following sections describe the RTS
options themselves.
</para>
<sect2 id="setting-rts-options">
<title>Setting RTS options</title>
<indexterm><primary>RTS options, setting</primary></indexterm>
<para>
There are four ways to set RTS options:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
on the command line between <literal>+RTS ... -RTS</literal>, when running the program
(<xref linkend="rts-opts-cmdline" />)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>at compile-time, using <option>--with-rtsopts</option>
(<xref linkend="rts-opts-compile-time" />)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>with the environment variable <envar>GHCRTS</envar>
(<xref linkend="rts-options-environment" />)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>by overriding “hooks” in the runtime system
(<xref linkend="rts-hooks" />)
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<sect3 id="rts-opts-cmdline">
<title>Setting RTS options on the command line</title>
<para>
If you set the <literal>-rtsopts</literal> flag appropriately
when linking (see <xref linkend="options-linker" />), you can
give RTS options on the command line when running your
program.
</para>
<para>
When your Haskell program starts up, the RTS extracts
command-line arguments bracketed between
<option>+RTS</option><indexterm><primary><option>+RTS</option></primary></indexterm>
and
<option>-RTS</option><indexterm><primary><option>-RTS</option></primary></indexterm>
as its own. For example:
</para>
<screen>
$ ghc prog.hs -rtsopts
[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( prog.hs, prog.o )
Linking prog ...
$ ./prog -f +RTS -H32m -S -RTS -h foo bar
</screen>
<para>
The RTS will
snaffle <option>-H32m</option> <option>-S</option> for itself,
and the remaining arguments <literal>-f -h foo bar</literal>
will be available to your program if/when it calls
<function>System.Environment.getArgs</function>.
</para>
<para>
No <option>-RTS</option> option is required if the
runtime-system options extend to the end of the command line, as in
this example:
</para>
<screen>
% hls -ltr /usr/etc +RTS -A5m
</screen>
<para>
If you absolutely positively want all the rest of the options
in a command line to go to the program (and not the RTS), use a
<option>--RTS</option><indexterm><primary><option>--RTS</option></primary></indexterm>.
</para>
<para>
As always, for RTS options that take
<replaceable>size</replaceable>s: If the last character of
<replaceable>size</replaceable> is a K or k, multiply by 1000; if an
M or m, by 1,000,000; if a G or G, by 1,000,000,000. (And any
wraparound in the counters is <emphasis>your</emphasis>
fault!)
</para>
<para>
Giving a <literal>+RTS -?</literal>
<indexterm><primary><option>-?</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm> option
will print out the RTS options actually available in your program
(which vary, depending on how you compiled).</para>
<para>
NOTE: since GHC is itself compiled by GHC, you can change RTS
options in the compiler using the normal
<literal>+RTS ... -RTS</literal>
combination. eg. to set the maximum heap
size for a compilation to 128M, you would add
<literal>+RTS -M128m -RTS</literal>
to the command line.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="rts-opts-compile-time">
<title>Setting RTS options at compile time</title>
<para>
GHC lets you change the default RTS options for a program at
compile time, using the <literal>-with-rtsopts</literal>
flag (<xref linkend="options-linker" />). A common use for this is
to give your program a default heap and/or stack size that is
greater than the default. For example, to set <literal>-H128m
-K64m</literal>, link
with <literal>-with-rtsopts="-H128m -K64m"</literal>.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="rts-options-environment">
<title>Setting RTS options with the <envar>GHCRTS</envar>
environment variable</title>
<indexterm><primary>RTS options</primary><secondary>from the environment</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>environment variable</primary><secondary>for
setting RTS options</secondary></indexterm>
<para>
If the <literal>-rtsopts</literal> flag is set to
something other than <literal>none</literal> when linking,
RTS options are also taken from the environment variable
<envar>GHCRTS</envar><indexterm><primary><envar>GHCRTS</envar></primary>
</indexterm>. For example, to set the maximum heap size
to 2G for all GHC-compiled programs (using an
<literal>sh</literal>-like shell):
</para>
<screen>
GHCRTS='-M2G'
export GHCRTS
</screen>
<para>
RTS options taken from the <envar>GHCRTS</envar> environment
variable can be overridden by options given on the command
line.
</para>
<para>
Tip: setting something like <literal>GHCRTS=-M2G</literal>
in your environment is a handy way to avoid Haskell programs
growing beyond the real memory in your machine, which is
easy to do by accident and can cause the machine to slow to
a crawl until the OS decides to kill the process (and you
hope it kills the right one).
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="rts-hooks">
<title>“Hooks” to change RTS behaviour</title>
<indexterm><primary>hooks</primary><secondary>RTS</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>RTS hooks</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>RTS behaviour, changing</primary></indexterm>
<para>GHC lets you exercise rudimentary control over certain RTS
settings for any given program, by compiling in a
“hook” that is called by the run-time system. The RTS
contains stub definitions for these hooks, but by writing your
own version and linking it on the GHC command line, you can
override the defaults.</para>
<para>Owing to the vagaries of DLL linking, these hooks don't work
under Windows when the program is built dynamically.</para>
<para>You can change the messages printed when the runtime
system “blows up,” e.g., on stack overflow. The hooks
for these are as follows:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<function>void OutOfHeapHook (unsigned long, unsigned long)</function>
<indexterm><primary><function>OutOfHeapHook</function></primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>The heap-overflow message.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<function>void StackOverflowHook (long int)</function>
<indexterm><primary><function>StackOverflowHook</function></primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>The stack-overflow message.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<function>void MallocFailHook (long int)</function>
<indexterm><primary><function>MallocFailHook</function></primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>The message printed if <function>malloc</function>
fails.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="rts-options-misc">
<title>Miscellaneous RTS options</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><option>-V<replaceable>secs</replaceable></option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-V</option></primary><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></indexterm></term>
<listitem>
<para>Sets the interval that the RTS clock ticks at. The
runtime uses a single timer signal to count ticks; this timer
signal is used to control the context switch timer (<xref
linkend="using-concurrent" />) and the heap profiling
timer <xref linkend="rts-options-heap-prof" />. Also, the
time profiler uses the RTS timer signal directly to record
time profiling samples.</para>
<para>Normally, setting the <option>-V</option> option
directly is not necessary: the resolution of the RTS timer is
adjusted automatically if a short interval is requested with
the <option>-C</option> or <option>-i</option> options.
However, setting <option>-V</option> is required in order to
increase the resolution of the time profiler.</para>
<para>Using a value of zero disables the RTS clock
completely, and has the effect of disabling timers that
depend on it: the context switch timer and the heap profiling
timer. Context switches will still happen, but
deterministically and at a rate much faster than normal.
Disabling the interval timer is useful for debugging, because
it eliminates a source of non-determinism at runtime.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><option>--install-signal-handlers=<replaceable>yes|no</replaceable></option>
<indexterm><primary><option>--install-signal-handlers</option></primary><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></indexterm></term>
<listitem>
<para>If yes (the default), the RTS installs signal handlers to catch
things like ctrl-C. This option is primarily useful for when
you are using the Haskell code as a DLL, and want to set your
own signal handlers.</para>
<para>Note that even
with <option>--install-signal-handlers=no</option>, the RTS
interval timer signal is still enabled. The timer signal
is either SIGVTALRM or SIGALRM, depending on the RTS
configuration and OS capabilities. To disable the timer
signal, use the <literal>-V0</literal> RTS option (see
above).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><option>-xm<replaceable>address</replaceable></option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-xm</option></primary><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></indexterm></term>
<listitem>
<para>
WARNING: this option is for working around memory
allocation problems only. Do not use unless GHCi fails
with a message like “<literal>failed to mmap() memory below 2Gb</literal>”. If you need to use this option to get GHCi working
on your machine, please file a bug.
</para>
<para>
On 64-bit machines, the RTS needs to allocate memory in the
low 2Gb of the address space. Support for this across
different operating systems is patchy, and sometimes fails.
This option is there to give the RTS a hint about where it
should be able to allocate memory in the low 2Gb of the
address space. For example, <literal>+RTS -xm20000000
-RTS</literal> would hint that the RTS should allocate
starting at the 0.5Gb mark. The default is to use the OS's
built-in support for allocating memory in the low 2Gb if
available (e.g. <literal>mmap</literal>
with <literal>MAP_32BIT</literal> on Linux), or
otherwise <literal>-xm40000000</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="rts-options-gc">
<title>RTS options to control the garbage collector</title>
<indexterm><primary>garbage collector</primary><secondary>options</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>RTS options</primary><secondary>garbage collection</secondary></indexterm>
<para>There are several options to give you precise control over
garbage collection. Hopefully, you won't need any of these in
normal operation, but there are several things that can be tweaked
for maximum performance.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-A</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-A</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>allocation area, size</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 512k] Set the allocation area size
used by the garbage collector. The allocation area
(actually generation 0 step 0) is fixed and is never resized
(unless you use <option>-H</option>, below).</para>
<para>Increasing the allocation area size may or may not
give better performance (a bigger allocation area means
worse cache behaviour but fewer garbage collections and less
promotion).</para>
<para>With only 1 generation (<option>-G1</option>) the
<option>-A</option> option specifies the minimum allocation
area, since the actual size of the allocation area will be
resized according to the amount of data in the heap (see
<option>-F</option>, below).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-c</option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-c</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>garbage collection</primary><secondary>compacting</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>compacting garbage collection</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Use a compacting algorithm for collecting the oldest
generation. By default, the oldest generation is collected
using a copying algorithm; this option causes it to be
compacted in-place instead. The compaction algorithm is
slower than the copying algorithm, but the savings in memory
use can be considerable.</para>
<para>For a given heap size (using the <option>-H</option>
option), compaction can in fact reduce the GC cost by
allowing fewer GCs to be performed. This is more likely
when the ratio of live data to heap size is high, say
>30%.</para>
<para>NOTE: compaction doesn't currently work when a single
generation is requested using the <option>-G1</option>
option.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><option>-c</option><replaceable>n</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 30] Automatically enable
compacting collection when the live data exceeds
<replaceable>n</replaceable>% of the maximum heap size
(see the <option>-M</option> option). Note that the maximum
heap size is unlimited by default, so this option has no
effect unless the maximum heap size is set with
<option>-M</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-F</option><replaceable>factor</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-F</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>heap size, factor</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 2] This option controls the amount
of memory reserved for the older generations (and in the
case of a two space collector the size of the allocation
area) as a factor of the amount of live data. For example,
if there was 2M of live data in the oldest generation when
we last collected it, then by default we'll wait until it
grows to 4M before collecting it again.</para>
<para>The default seems to work well here. If you have
plenty of memory, it is usually better to use
<option>-H</option><replaceable>size</replaceable> than to
increase
<option>-F</option><replaceable>factor</replaceable>.</para>
<para>The <option>-F</option> setting will be automatically
reduced by the garbage collector when the maximum heap size
(the <option>-M</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
setting) is approaching.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-G</option><replaceable>generations</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-G</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>generations, number of</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 2] Set the number of generations
used by the garbage collector. The default of 2 seems to be
good, but the garbage collector can support any number of
generations. Anything larger than about 4 is probably not a
good idea unless your program runs for a
<emphasis>long</emphasis> time, because the oldest
generation will hardly ever get collected.</para>
<para>Specifying 1 generation with <option>+RTS -G1</option>
gives you a simple 2-space collector, as you would expect.
In a 2-space collector, the <option>-A</option> option (see
above) specifies the <emphasis>minimum</emphasis> allocation
area size, since the allocation area will grow with the
amount of live data in the heap. In a multi-generational
collector the allocation area is a fixed size (unless you
use the <option>-H</option> option, see below).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-qg<optional><replaceable>gen</replaceable></optional></option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-qg</option><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[New in GHC 6.12.1] [Default: 0]
Use parallel GC in
generation <replaceable>gen</replaceable> and higher.
Omitting <replaceable>gen</replaceable> turns off the
parallel GC completely, reverting to sequential GC.</para>
<para>The default parallel GC settings are usually suitable
for parallel programs (i.e. those
using <literal>par</literal>, Strategies, or with multiple
threads). However, it is sometimes beneficial to enable
the parallel GC for a single-threaded sequential program
too, especially if the program has a large amount of heap
data and GC is a significant fraction of runtime. To use
the parallel GC in a sequential program, enable the
parallel runtime with a suitable <literal>-N</literal>
option, and additionally it might be beneficial to
restrict parallel GC to the old generation
with <literal>-qg1</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-qb<optional><replaceable>gen</replaceable></optional></option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-qb</option><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
[New in GHC 6.12.1] [Default: 1] Use
load-balancing in the parallel GC in
generation <replaceable>gen</replaceable> and higher.
Omitting <replaceable>gen</replaceable> disables
load-balancing entirely.</para>
<para>
Load-balancing shares out the work of GC between the
available cores. This is a good idea when the heap is
large and we need to parallelise the GC work, however it
is also pessimal for the short young-generation
collections in a parallel program, because it can harm
locality by moving data from the cache of the CPU where is
it being used to the cache of another CPU. Hence the
default is to do load-balancing only in the
old-generation. In fact, for a parallel program it is
sometimes beneficial to disable load-balancing entirely
with <literal>-qb</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-H</option><optional><replaceable>size</replaceable></optional>
<indexterm><primary><option>-H</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>heap size, suggested</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 0] This option provides a
“suggested heap size” for the garbage
collector. Think
of <option>-H<replaceable>size</replaceable></option> as a
variable <option>-A</option> option. It says: I want to
use at least <replaceable>size</replaceable> bytes, so use
whatever is left over to increase the <option>-A</option>
value.</para>
<para>This option does not put
a <emphasis>limit</emphasis> on the heap size: the heap
may grow beyond the given size as usual.</para>
<para>If <replaceable>size</replaceable> is omitted, then
the garbage collector will take the size of the heap at
the previous GC as the <replaceable>size</replaceable>.
This has the effect of allowing for a
larger <option>-A</option> value but without increasing
the overall memory requirements of the program. It can be
useful when the default small <option>-A</option> value is
suboptimal, as it can be in programs that create large
amounts of long-lived data.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-I</option><replaceable>seconds</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-I</option></primary>
<secondary>RTS option</secondary>
</indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>idle GC</primary>
</indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>(default: 0.3) In the threaded and SMP versions of the RTS (see
<option>-threaded</option>, <xref linkend="options-linker" />), a
major GC is automatically performed if the runtime has been idle
(no Haskell computation has been running) for a period of time.
The amount of idle time which must pass before a GC is performed is
set by the <option>-I</option><replaceable>seconds</replaceable>
option. Specifying <option>-I0</option> disables the idle GC.</para>
<para>For an interactive application, it is probably a good idea to
use the idle GC, because this will allow finalizers to run and
deadlocked threads to be detected in the idle time when no Haskell
computation is happening. Also, it will mean that a GC is less
likely to happen when the application is busy, and so
responsiveness may be improved. However, if the amount of live data in
the heap is particularly large, then the idle GC can cause a
significant delay, and too small an interval could adversely affect
interactive responsiveness.</para>
<para>This is an experimental feature, please let us know if it
causes problems and/or could benefit from further tuning.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-ki</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-k</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>stack, initial size</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
[Default: 1k] Set the initial stack size for new
threads. (Note: this flag used to be
simply <option>-k</option>, but was renamed
to <option>-ki</option> in GHC 7.2.1. The old name is
still accepted for backwards compatibility, but that may
be removed in a future version).
</para>
<para>
Thread stacks (including the main thread's stack) live on
the heap. As the stack grows, new stack chunks are added
as required; if the stack shrinks again, these extra stack
chunks are reclaimed by the garbage collector. The
default initial stack size is deliberately small, in order
to keep the time and space overhead for thread creation to
a minimum, and to make it practical to spawn threads for
even tiny pieces of work.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-kc</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-kc</option></primary><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>stack</primary><secondary>chunk size</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
[Default: 32k] Set the size of “stack
chunks”. When a thread's current stack overflows, a
new stack chunk is created and added to the thread's
stack, until the limit set by <option>-K</option> is
reached.
</para>
<para>
The advantage of smaller stack chunks is that the garbage
collector can avoid traversing stack chunks if they are
known to be unmodified since the last collection, so
reducing the chunk size means that the garbage collector
can identify more stack as unmodified, and the GC overhead
might be reduced. On the other hand, making stack chunks
too small adds some overhead as there will be more
overflow/underflow between chunks. The default setting of
32k appears to be a reasonable compromise in most cases.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-kb</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-kc</option></primary><secondary>RTS
option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>stack</primary><secondary>chunk buffer size</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
[Default: 1k] Sets the stack chunk buffer size.
When a stack chunk overflows and a new stack chunk is
created, some of the data from the previous stack chunk is
moved into the new chunk, to avoid an immediate underflow
and repeated overflow/underflow at the boundary. The
amount of stack moved is set by the <option>-kb</option>
option.
</para>
<para>
Note that to avoid wasting space, this value should
typically be less than 10% of the size of a stack
chunk (<option>-kc</option>), because in a chain of stack
chunks, each chunk will have a gap of unused space of this
size.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-K</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-K</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>stack, maximum size</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: 8M] Set the maximum stack size for
an individual thread to <replaceable>size</replaceable>
bytes. If the thread attempts to exceed this limit, it will
be send the <literal>StackOverflow</literal> exception.
</para>
<para>
This option is there mainly to stop the program eating up
all the available memory in the machine if it gets into an
infinite loop.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-m</option><replaceable>n</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-m</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>heap, minimum free</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Minimum % <replaceable>n</replaceable> of heap
which must be available for allocation. The default is
3%.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-M</option><replaceable>size</replaceable>
<indexterm><primary><option>-M</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>heap size, maximum</primary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>[Default: unlimited] Set the maximum heap size to
<replaceable>size</replaceable> bytes. The heap normally
grows and shrinks according to the memory requirements of
the program. The only reason for having this option is to
stop the heap growing without bound and filling up all the
available swap space, which at the least will result in the
program being summarily killed by the operating
system.</para>
<para>The maximum heap size also affects other garbage
collection parameters: when the amount of live data in the
heap exceeds a certain fraction of the maximum heap size,
compacting collection will be automatically enabled for the
oldest generation, and the <option>-F</option> parameter
will be reduced in order to avoid exceeding the maximum heap
size.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<option>-T</option>
<indexterm><primary><option>-T</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<term>
<option>-t</option><optional><replaceable>file</replaceable></optional>
<indexterm><primary><option>-t</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<term>
<option>-s</option><optional><replaceable>file</replaceable></optional>
<indexterm><primary><option>-s</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<term>
<option>-S</option><optional><replaceable>file</replaceable></optional>
<indexterm><primary><option>-S</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<term>
<option>--machine-readable</option>
<indexterm><primary><option>--machine-readable</option></primary><secondary>RTS option</secondary></indexterm>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>These options produce runtime-system statistics, such
as the amount of time spent executing the program and in the
garbage collector, the amount of memory allocated, the
maximum size of the heap, and so on. The three
variants give different levels of detail:
<option>-T</option> collects the data but produces no output
<option>-t</option> produces a single line of output in the
same format as GHC's <option>-Rghc-timing</option> option,
<option>-s</option> produces a more detailed summary at the
end of the program, and <option>-S</option> additionally
produces information about each and every garbage
collection.</para>
<para>The output is placed in
<replaceable>file</replaceable>. If
<replaceable>file</replaceable> is omitted, then the output
is sent to <constant>stderr</constant>.</para>
<para>
If you use the <literal>-T</literal> flag then, you should
access the statistics using
<ulink url="&libraryBaseLocation;/GHC-Stats.html">GHC.Stats</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
If you use the <literal>-t</literal> flag then, when your
program finishes, you will see something like this:
</para>
<programlisting>
<<ghc: 36169392 bytes, 69 GCs, 603392/1065272 avg/max bytes residency (2 samples), 3M in use, 0.00 INIT (0.00 elapsed), 0.02 MUT (0.02 elapsed), 0.07 GC (0.07 elapsed) :ghc>>
</programlisting>
<para>
This tells you:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
The total number of bytes allocated by the program over the
whole run.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The total number of garbage collections performed.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The average and maximum "residency", which is the amount of
live data in bytes. The runtime can only determine the
amount of live data during a major GC, which is why the
number of samples corresponds to the number of major GCs
(and is usually relatively small). To get a better picture
of the heap profile of your program, use
the <option>-hT</option> RTS option
(<xref linkend="rts-profiling" />).
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The peak memory the RTS has allocated from the OS.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The amount of CPU time and elapsed wall clock time while
initialising the runtime system (INIT), running the program
itself (MUT, the mutator), and garbage collecting (GC).
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
You can also get this in a more future-proof, machine readable
format, with <literal>-t --machine-readable</literal>:
</para>
<programlisting>
[("bytes allocated", "36169392")
,("num_GCs", "69")
,("average_bytes_used", "603392")
,("max_bytes_used", "1065272")
,("num_byte_usage_samples", "2")
,("peak_megabytes_allocated", "3")
,("init_cpu_seconds", "0.00")
,("init_wall_seconds", "0.00")
,("mutator_cpu_seconds", "0.02")
,("mutator_wall_seconds", "0.02")
,("GC_cpu_seconds", "0.07")
,("GC_wall_seconds", "0.07")
]
</programlisting>
<para>
If you use the <literal>-s</literal> flag then, when your
program finishes, you will see something like this (the exact
details will vary depending on what sort of RTS you have, e.g.
you will only see profiling data if your RTS is compiled for
profiling):
</para>
<programlisting>
36,169,392 bytes allocated in the heap
4,057,632 bytes copied during GC
1,065,272 bytes maximum residency (2 sample(s))
54,312 bytes maximum slop
3 MB total memory in use (0 MB lost due to fragmentation)
Generation 0: 67 collections, 0 parallel, 0.04s, 0.03s elapsed
Generation 1: 2 collections, 0 parallel, 0.03s, 0.04s elapsed
SPARKS: 359207 (557 converted, 149591 pruned)
INIT time 0.00s ( 0.00s elapsed)
MUT time 0.01s ( 0.02s elapsed)
GC time 0.07s ( 0.07s elapsed)
EXIT time 0.00s ( 0.00s elapsed)
Total time 0.08s ( 0.09s elapsed)
%GC time 89.5% (75.3% elapsed)
Alloc rate 4,520,608,923 bytes per MUT second
Productivity 10.5% of total user, 9.1% of total elapsed
</programlisting>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
The "bytes allocated in the heap" is the total bytes allocated
by the program over the whole run.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
GHC uses a copying garbage collector by default. "bytes copied
during GC" tells you how many bytes it had to copy during
garbage collection.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The maximum space actually used by your program is the
"bytes maximum residency" figure. This is only checked during
major garbage collections, so it is only an approximation;
the number of samples tells you how many times it is checked.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The "bytes maximum slop" tells you the most space that is ever
wasted due to the way GHC allocates memory in blocks. Slop is
memory at the end of a block that was wasted. There's no way
to control this; we just like to see how much memory is being
lost this way.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The "total memory in use" tells you the peak memory the RTS has
allocated from the OS.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Next there is information about the garbage collections done.
For each generation it says how many garbage collections were
done, how many of those collections were done in parallel,
the total CPU time used for garbage collecting that generation,
and the total wall clock time elapsed while garbage collecting
that generation.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <literal>SPARKS</literal> statistic refers to the
use of <literal>Control.Parallel.par</literal> and related
functionality in the program. Each spark represents a call
to <literal>par</literal>; a spark is "converted" when it is
executed in parallel; and a spark is "pruned" when it is
found to be already evaluated and is discarded from the pool
by the garbage collector. Any remaining sparks are
discarded at the end of execution, so "converted" plus
"pruned" does not necessarily add up to the total.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Next there is the CPU time and wall clock time elapsed broken
down by what the runtime system was doing at the time.
INIT is the runtime system initialisation.
MUT is the mutator time, i.e. the time spent actually running
your code.
GC is the time spent doing garbage collection.
RP is the time spent doing retainer profiling.
PROF is the time spent doing other profiling.
EXIT is the runtime system shutdown time.
And finally, Total is, of course, the total.
</para>
<para>
%GC time tells you what percentage GC is of Total.
"Alloc rate" tells you the "bytes allocated in the heap" divided
by the MUT CPU time.
"Productivity" tells you what percentage of the Total CPU and wall
clock elapsed times are spent in the mutator (MUT).
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
The <literal>-S</literal> flag, as well as giving the same
output as the <literal>-s</literal> flag, prints information
about each GC as it happens:
</para>
<programlisting>
Alloc Copied Live GC GC TOT TOT Page Flts
bytes bytes bytes user elap user elap
528496 47728 141512 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02 0 0 (Gen: 1)
[...]
524944 175944 1726384 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.11 0 0 (Gen: 0)
</programlisting>
<para>
For each garbage collection, we print:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
How many bytes we allocated this garbage collection.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
How many bytes we copied this garbage collection.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
How many bytes are currently live.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
How long this garbage collection took (CPU time and elapsed
wall clock time).