This repository is inactive and kept for posterity's sake.

Any further development will happen in fea_libs. Cheers.

fea_benchmark

Some benchmarks and benchmarking helper functions.

Instructions

You can simply include bench_util.h in your program. It is a collection of functions inside bench namespace.

Alternatively, you can use cmake's find_package. In your CMakeLists.txt :

find_package(bench_util REQUIRED)
target_include_directories(${project_name} PRIVATE ${BENCH_UTIL_INCLUDE_DIRS})

Cmake

You can build all examples and install the header in your user include path easily.

$ mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && cmake --build . && cmake --build . --target install

This also installs the appropriate files so you can include the header lib using cmake find_package.

Usage

#include <bench_util.h>

[...]

bench::title("Your title");
bench::start("Optional string");
// Do stuff
bench::clobber();
bench::stop("Optional but really recommended string");

bench::start();
// Do stuff
bench::clobber();
bench::stop("Optional but really recommended string");

outputs:

##########
Your title
##########


Optional string
---------------
Optional but really recommended string                                0.000000s
Optional but really recommended string                                0.000000s

Disabling Output

A cmake option is available if you wish to disable console output completely.

-DBENCH_SHUTUP=On

You can turn off the benchmark output for a single file by defining BENCH_SHUTUP 1 before you include the header.

#define BENCH_SHUTUP 1
#include <bench_util.h>

If you output information related to the benchmark, this output can be turned off along side the benchmarks. Use the BENCH_PRINT macro to print your messages. It is a wrapper on top of printf, and behaves the same way.

#define BENCH_SHUTUP 1
#include <bench_util.h>

/* Your code here ... */

BENCH_PRINT("Some int related to benchmarks %d\n", 42); // This wont output when you define BENCH_SHUTUP 1.

Compiling

Of course, use your compiler optimizations when testing performance.

Windows

cl /O2 main.cpp

OS X

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ main.cpp

Useful commands

In most cases, you want to inspect various program attributes to understand the results. Here are a some useful commands.

Windows

• Generate assembly
  • /FA Assembly code; .asm
  • /FAc Machine and assembly code; .cod
  • /FAs Source and assembly code; .asm
  • /FAcs Machine, source, and assembly code; .cod
• Vtable layout
  • cl /d1reportAllClassLayout main.cpp
  • cl /d1reportSingleClassLayoutYOURCLASS main.cpp

OS X

• Generate assembly
  • clang++ -S -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -mllvm --x86-asm-syntax=intel main.cpp
  • clang++ -S -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -masm=intel main.cpp (Clang 3.5+)
• Vtable layout
  • clang++ -cc1 -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -fdump-record-layouts main.cpp
• Memory layout (vtable + objects)
  • clang++ -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -Xclang -fdump-record-layouts -fsyntax-only main.cpp
• Vtable with LLVM IR
  • clang++ -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -Xclang -fdump-record-layouts main.cpp
• Dissasembly
  • otool -tv a.out

More clang commands

Linux

• Generate assembly
  • g++ -S main.cpp
  • g++ -Wa,-adhln -g main.cpp (Assembly + Source)
• Vtable layout
  • g++ -fdump-class-hierarchy main.cpp
• Dissasembly
  • objdump -d a.out

Tools

In no specific order, various tools to profile results.

• Zoom (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Valgrind Suite (Cachegrind, Memcheck) (Mac, Linux)
• Visual Studio Profiling Tools (Windows)
• Xcode Instruments (Mac)
• perf (Linux)
• OProfile (Linux)
• Intel Vtune (Commercial - Windows, Linux)

More tools