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  • Paul Mackerras's avatar
    perfcounters: provide expansion room in the ABI · 2743a5b0
    Paul Mackerras authored
    
    
    Impact: ABI change
    
    This expands several fields in the perf_counter_hw_event struct and adds
    a "flags" argument to the perf_counter_open system call, in order that
    features can be added in future without ABI changes.
    
    In particular the record_type field is expanded to 64 bits, and the
    space for flag bits has been expanded from 32 to 64 bits.
    
    This also adds some new fields:
    
    * read_format (64 bits) is intended to provide a way to specify what
      userspace wants to get back when it does a read() on a simple
      (non-interrupting) counter;
    
    * exclude_idle (1 bit) provides a way for userspace to ask that events
      that occur when the cpu is idle be excluded;
    
    * extra_config_len will provide a way for userspace to supply an
      arbitrary amount of extra machine-specific PMU configuration data
      immediately following the perf_counter_hw_event struct, to allow
      sophisticated users to program things such as instruction matching
      CAMs and address range registers;
    
    * __reserved_3 and __reserved_4 provide space for future expansion.
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
    2743a5b0