The scripts in this repository convert Python profiling data gathered using the cProfile module into the Callgrind and the DOT formats. This allows using more advanced tools to inspect the profiles, for example the KCacheGrind interactive profile viewer.

The foundation for the scripts is the callgraph module, which provies a graph interface for pstats.Stats compatible objects. It can be used, for example, to provide advanced callgraph manipulation and aggregation functions. It should also simplify the writing of additional conversion scripts.

Both scripts and library are written in Python3. They were originally part of my master's thesis, but should be useful on their own.

The script converts execution profile dumps generated with the cProfile module to a file in the Callgrind format (typically named callgrind.out...). The Callgrind format is widely supported in profiling tools. For example, the excellent profile inspection tool KCacheGrind supports Callgrind files. This script accepts several profile dumps as input and allows some aggregation and grouping of the data.

Usage: profile_to_callgrind.py <list_of_profile_file_paths>

Options:

• -h, --help: show the help message and exit -o FILE,
• --output-name=FILE: Write output to FILE instead of callgrind.out.FIRST_INPUT_FILE Use - to have the output written to the terminal (stdout).
• -w, --overwrite: Overwrite the output file if it already exists.

The script creates (call) graphs in the DOT format from execution profile dumps generated with the cProfile module. The DOT file format is common for graph visualization tools; it comes from the Graphviz package. The script accepts several profile dumps as input and allows some aggregation and grouping of the data.

Usage: profile_to_dot.py <list_of_profile_file_paths>

Options:

• -h, --help: show this help message and exit
• -o FILE, --output-name=FILE: Write output to FILE instead of FIRST_INPUT_FILE.dot Use - to have the output written to the terminal (stdout).
• -w, --overwrite: Overwrite the output file if it already exists.
• -t PERCENT, --threshold=PERCENT: Ignore all functions with less than PERCENT part in the total execution time

The class CallGraph in the callgraph module (callgraph.py) implements a directed bipartite graph of functions and calls between them.

A call graph represents the data of pstats.Stats instances: it interprets the functions and their mutual invocations in the profile as nodes (see the classes Function and Call). All profiling data is accessible via respective node methods.

The graph is easy to traverse both forwards (from caller to callee) and backwards (from callee to caller). Its purpose is to support operations that are difficult to express in the list-sorting style of pstats.Stats. Examples of such operations are pruning of execution branches, and merging of nodes.

The class can merge multiple pstats.Stats objects a single call graph.

Copyright (c) 2010--2012 Peter Dinges pdinges@acm.org.

The software in this repository is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.