API for outputting different formats from CPython sampling profiler

[taegyunkim]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

CPython 3.15 has statistical sampling profiler which currently only supports outputting

1. pstats https://docs.python.org/3.15/library/profile.html#pstats.Stats
2. collapsed format for flamegraphs

   cpython/Lib/profiling/sampling/stack_collector.py

   Line 24 in 8d5c334

   class CollapsedStackCollector(StackTraceCollector):

Since it's still an early stage for the sampling profiler, I thought it would be nice to initiate discussion around how to support multiple different formats from the profiler.

1. pprof
2. OTel

are the formats that could potentially be added, but supporting those from CPython would introduce dependencies that might complicate building/testing and distributing CPython.

I'd like to suggest that CPython has an interface to support 3rd party collectors. What do you think?

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

I have already discussed this feature proposal on Discourse

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

https://discuss.python.org/t/pre-pep-api-for-outputting-different-formats-from-cpython-sampling-profiler/103490

[StanFromIreland]

Why was the issue created already, there has been no discussion on Discourse yet, and no PEP (since it is a pre-PEP discussion)?

[taegyunkim]

@StanFromIreland Just wanted to have an entry here too. Feel free to close this if this is redundant.

[ZeroIntensity]

FWIW, this probably doesn't need a whole PEP. For future reference, we typically ask that the DPO discussion reach consensus before opening an issue, but since this one is already here we might as well keep it.