This section documents the encodings of the events emitted to GHC’s event log. These events can include information about the thread scheduling events, garbage collection statistics, profiling information, user-defined tracing events.
This section is intended for implementors of tooling which consume these events. GHC ships with a C header file (EventlogFormat.h
) which provides symbolic names for the event type IDs described in this file.
15.1. Event log format
The log format is designed to be extensible: old tools should be able to parse (but not necessarily understand all of) new versions of the format, and new tools will be able to understand old log files.
- The format is endian-independent: all values are represented in big-endian order.
- The format is extensible:
- The header describes each event type and its length. Tools that don’t recognise a particular event type can skip those events.
- There is room for extra information in the event type specification, which can be ignored by older tools.
- Events can have extra information added, but existing fields cannot be changed. Tools should ignore extra fields at the end of the event record.
The event-log stream begins with a header describing the event types (EventType
) present in the file. The header is followed by the event records (Event
) themselves, each of which start with the event type id and a 64-bit timestamp:
EventLog :
EVENT_HEADER_BEGIN
EventType*
EVENT_HEADER_END
EVENT_DATA_BEGIN
Event*
EVENT_DATA_END
EventType :
EVENT_ET_BEGIN
Word16 -- event type id, unique identifier for this event
Int16 -- >=0 size of the event record in bytes (minus the event type id and timestamp fields)
-- -1 variable size
Word32 -- size of the event description in bytes
Word8* -- event description, UTF8 encoded string describing the event
Word32 -- size of the extra info in bytes
Word8* -- extra info (for future extensions)
EVENT_ET_END
Event :
Word16 -- event type id, as included in the event log header
Word64 -- timestamp (nanoseconds)
[Word16] -- length of the rest (optional, for variable-sized events only)
... event specific info ...
There are two classes of event types:
- Fixed size: All event records of a fixed-sized type are of the same length, the size given in the header event-log header.
- Variable size: Each event record includes a length field.
15.2. Runtime system diagnostics
ThreadId ~ Word32
CapNo ~ Word16
CapSetId ~ Word32
15.2.1. Capability sets
TODO
15.2.2. Environment information
These events are typically produced during program startup and describe the environment which the program is being run in.
RTS_IDENTIFIER
-
Tag: 29 Length: variable Field CapSetId: Capability set Field String: Runtime system name and version. Describes the name and version of the runtime system responsible for the indicated capability set.
PROGRAM_ARGS
-
Tag: 30 Length: variable Field CapSetId: Capability set Field [String]: The command-line arguments passed to the program Describes the command-line used to start the program.
PROGRAM_ENV
-
Tag: 31 Length: variable Field CapSetId: Capability set Field [String]: The environment variable name/value pairs. (TODO: encoding?) Describes the environment variables present in the program’s environment.
15.2.3. Thread and scheduling events
CREATE_THREAD
-
Tag: 0 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id Marks the creation of a Haskell thread.
RUN_THREAD
-
Tag: 1 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id The indicated thread has started running.
STOP_THREAD
-
Tag: 2
Length: fixed
Field ThreadId: thread id
Field Word16: status
- 1: HeapOverflow
- 2: StackOverflow
- 3: ThreadYielding
- 4: ThreadBlocked
- 5: ThreadFinished
- 6: ForeignCall
- 7: BlockedOnMVar
- 8: BlockedOnBlackHole
- 9: BlockedOnRead
- 10: BlockedOnWrite
- 11: BlockedOnDelay
- 12: BlockedOnSTM
- 13: BlockedOnDoProc
- 16: BlockedOnMsgThrowTo
Field ThreadId: thread id of thread being blocked on (only for some status values)
The indicated thread has stopped running for the reason given by
status
.
THREAD_RUNNABLE
-
Tag: 3 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id The indicated thread is has been marked as ready to run.
MIGRATE_THREAD
-
Tag: 4 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id Field CapNo: capability The indicated thread has been migrated to a new capability.
THREAD_WAKEUP
-
Tag: 8 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id Field CapNo: other capability The indicated thread has been woken up on another capability.
THREAD_LABEL
-
Tag: 44 Length: fixed Field ThreadId: thread id Field String: label The indicated thread has been given a label (e.g. with GHC.Conc.labelThread).
15.2.4. Garbage collector events
The following events mark various points of the lifecycle of a moving garbage collection.
A typical garbage collection will look something like the following:
- A capability realizes that it needs a garbage collection (e.g. as a result of running out of nursery) and requests a garbage collection. This is marked by
REQUEST_SEQ_GC
orREQUEST_PAR_GC
. - As other capabilities reach yield points and suspend execution they emit
STOP_THREAD
events. - When all capabilities have suspended execution, collection will begin, marked by a
GC_START
event. - As individual parallel GC threads commence with scavenging they will emit
GC_WORK
events. - If a parallel GC thread runs out of work it will emit a
GC_IDLE
event. If it is later handed more work it will emit anotherGC_WORK
event. - Eventually when scavenging has finished a
GC_DONE
event will be emitted by each GC thread. - A bit of book-keeping is performed.
- A
GC_END
event will be emitted marking the end of the GC cycle. - A
HEAP_SIZE
event will be emitted giving the current size of the heap, in bytes, calculated by how many megablocks are allocated. - A
BLOCKS_SIZE
event will be emitted giving the current size of the heap, in bytes, calculated by how many blocks are allocated. - A
GC_STATS_GHC
event will be emitted containing various details of the collection and heap state. - In the case of a major collection, a
HEAP_LIVE
event will be emitted describing the current size of the live on-heap data. - In the case of the
-threaded
RTS, aSPARK_COUNTERS
event will be emitted giving details on how many sparks have been created, evaluated, and GC’d. - As mutator threads resume execution they will emit
RUN_THREAD
events. - A
MEM_RETURN
event will be emitted containing details about currently live mblocks, how many we think we need and whether we could return excess to the OS.
Note that in the case of the concurrent non-moving collector additional events will be emitted during the concurrent phase of collection. These are described in Non-moving GC event output.
GC_START
-
Tag: 9 Length: fixed A garbage collection pass has been started.
GC_END
-
Tag: 10 Length: fixed A garbage collection pass has been finished.
REQUEST_SEQ_GC
-
Tag: 11 Length: fixed A sequential garbage collection has been requested by a capability.
REQUEST_PAR_GC
-
Tag: 12 Length: fixed A parallel garbage collection has been requested by a capability.
GC_IDLE
-
Tag: 20 Length: fixed An idle-time garbage collection has been started.
GC_WORK
-
Tag: 21 Length: fixed Marks the start of concurrent scavenging.
GC_DONE
-
Tag: 22 Length: fixed Marks the end of concurrent scavenging.
GC_STATS_GHC
-
Tag: 53 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word16: generation of collection Field Word64: bytes copied Field Word64: bytes of slop found Field Word64: bytes of fragmentation, the difference between total mblock size and total block size. When all mblocks are full of full blocks, this number is 0. Field Word64: number of parallel garbage collection threads Field Word64: maximum number of bytes copied by any single collector thread Field Word64: total bytes copied by all collector threads Report various information about a major collection.
GC_GLOBAL_SYNC
-
Tag: 54 Length: fixed TODO
MEM_RETURN
-
Tag: 90 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word32: currently allocated mblocks Field Word32: the number of mblocks we would like to retain Field Word32: the number of mblocks which we returned to the OS Report information about currently allocation megablocks and attempts made to return them to the operating system. If your heap is fragmented then the current value will be greater than needed value but returned will be less than the difference between the two.
15.2.5. Heap events and statistics
HEAP_ALLOCATED
-
Tag: 49 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word64: allocated bytes A new chunk of heap has been allocated by the indicated capability set.
HEAP_SIZE
-
Tag: 50 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word64: heap size in bytes Report the heap size, calculated by the number of megablocks currently allocated.
BLOCKS_SIZE
-
Tag: 91 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word64: heap size in bytes Report the heap size, calculated by the number of blocks currently allocated.
HEAP_LIVE
-
Tag: 51 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word64: heap size in bytes Report the live heap size.
HEAP_INFO_GHC
-
Tag: 52 Length: fixed Field CapSetId: heap capability set Field Word16: number of garbage collection generations Field Word64: maximum heap size Field Word64: allocation area size Field Word64: MBlock size Field Word64: Block size Report various information about the heap configuration. Typically produced during RTS initialization..
15.2.6. Spark events
CREATE_SPARK_THREAD
-
Tag: 15 Length: fixed A thread has been created to perform spark evaluation.
SPARK_COUNTERS
-
Tag: 34 Length: fixed A periodic reporting of various statistics of spark evaluation.
SPARK_CREATE
-
Tag: 35 Length: fixed A spark has been added to the spark pool.
SPARK_DUD
-
Tag: 36 Length: fixed TODO
SPARK_OVERFLOW
-
Tag: 37 Length: fixed TODO
SPARK_RUN
-
Tag: 38 Length: fixed Evaluation has started on a spark.
SPARK_STEAL
-
Tag: 39 Length: fixed Field Word16: capability from which the spark was stolen A spark has been stolen from another capability for evaluation.
SPARK_FIZZLE
-
Tag: 40 Length: fixed A spark has been GC’d before being evaluated.
SPARK_GC
-
Tag: 41 Length: fixed An unevaluated spark has been garbage collected.
15.2.7. Capability events
CAP_CREATE
-
Tag: 45 Length: fixed Field CapNo: the capability number A capability has been started.
CAP_DELETE
-
Tag: 46 Length: fixed A capability has been deleted.
CAP_DISABLE
-
Tag: 47 Length: fixed A capability has been disabled.
CAP_ENABLE
-
Tag: 48 Length: fixed A capability has been enabled.
15.2.8. Task events
TASK_CREATE
-
Tag: 55 Length: fixed Field TaskId: task id Field CapNo: capability number Field KernelThreadId: The thread-id of the kernel thread which created the task. Marks the creation of a task.
TASK_MIGRATE
-
Tag: 56 Length: fixed Field TaskId: task id Field CapNo: old capability Field CapNo: new capability Marks the migration of a task to a new capability.
15.2.9. Tracing events
LOG_MSG
-
Tag: 16 Length: variable Field String: The message A log message from the runtime system.
BLOCK_MARKER
-
Tag: 18 Length: variable Field Word32: size Field Word64: end time in nanoseconds Field String: marker name TODO
USER_MSG
-
Tag: 19 Length: variable Field String: message A user log message (from, e.g., Control.Concurrent.traceEvent).
USER_MARKER
-
Tag: 58 Length: variable Field String: marker name A user marker (from Debug.Trace.traceMarker).
15.3. Heap profiler event log output
The heap profiler can produce output to GHC’s event log, allowing samples to be correlated with other event log events over the program’s lifecycle.
This section defines the layout of these events. The String
type below is defined to be a UTF-8 encoded NUL-terminated string.
15.3.1. Metadata event types
15.3.1.1. Beginning of sample stream
A single fixed-width event emitted during program start-up describing the samples that follow.
HEAP_PROF_BEGIN
-
Tag: 160
Length: variable
Field Word8: profile ID
Field Word64: sampling period in nanoseconds
Field Word32: sample breadown type. One of,
HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_COST_CENTER
(output from-hc
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_CLOSURE_DESCR
(output from-hd
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_RETAINER
(output from-hr
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_MODULE
(output from-hm
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_TYPE_DESCR
(output from-hy
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_BIOGRAPHY
(output from-hb
)HEAP_PROF_BREAKDOWN_CLOSURE_TYPE
(output from-hT
)
Field String: module filter
Field String: closure description filter
Field String: type description filter
Field String: cost centre filter
Field String: cost centre stack filter
Field String: retainer filter
Field String: biography filter
15.3.1.2. Cost centre definitions
A variable-length packet produced once for each cost centre,
HEAP_PROF_COST_CENTRE
-
Tag: 161
Length: fixed
Field Word32: cost centre number
Field String: label
Field String: module
Field String: source location
Field Word8: flags:
- bit 0: is the cost-centre a CAF?
15.3.1.3. Info Table Provenance definitions
A message which describes an approximate source position for info tables. See -finfo-table-map
for more information.
IPE
-
Tag: 169 Length: fixed Field Word64: info table address Field String: table name Field String: closure type Field String: type Field String: source position label Field String: source position module Field String: source position location
15.3.1.4. Sample event types
A sample (consisting of a list of break-down classes, e.g. cost centres, and heap residency sizes), is to be encoded in the body of one or more events.
We normally mark the beginning of a new sample with an EVENT_HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_BEGIN
event,
HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_BEGIN
-
Length: fixed Field Word64: sample number Marks the beginning of a heap profile sample.
Biographical profiling samples start with the EVENT_HEAP_BIO_PROF_SAMPLE_BEGIN
event. These events also include a timestamp which indicates when the sample was taken. This is because all these samples will appear at the end of the eventlog due to how the biographical profiling mode works. You can use the timestamp to reorder the samples relative to the other events.
HEAP_BIO_PROF_SAMPLE_BEGIN
-
Tag: 166 Length: fixed Field Word64: sample number Field Word64: eventlog timestamp in ns
A heap residency census will follow. Since events may only be up to 2^16^ bytes in length a single sample may need to be split among multiple EVENT_HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE
events. The precise format of the census entries is determined by the break-down type.
At the end of the sample period the EVENT_HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_END
event if emitted. This is useful to properly delimit the sampling period and to record the total time spent profiling.
HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_END
-
Tag: 165 Length: fixed Field Word64: sample number Marks the end of a heap profile sample.
15.3.1.5. Cost-centre break-down
- A variable-length packet encoding a heap profile sample broken down by,
-
- cost-centre (
-hc
)
- cost-centre (
HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_COST_CENTRE
-
Tag: 163 Length: variable Field Word8: profile ID Field Word64: heap residency in bytes Field Word8: stack depth Field Word32[]: cost centre stack starting with inner-most (cost centre numbers)
15.3.1.6. String break-down
A variable-length event encoding a heap sample broken down by,
HEAP_PROF_SAMPLE_STRING
-
Tag: 164 Length: variable Field Word8: profile ID Field Word64: heap residency in bytes Field String: type or closure description, or module name
15.4. Time profiler event log output
The time profiling mode enabled by -p
also emits sample events to the eventlog. At the start of profiling the tick interval is emitted to the eventlog and then on each tick the current cost centre stack is emitted. Together these enable a user to construct an approximate track of the executation of their program.
15.4.1. Profile begin event
PROF_BEGIN
-
Tag: 168 Length: fixed Field Word64: tick interval, in nanoseconds Marks the beginning of a time profile.
15.4.2. Profile sample event
A variable-length packet encoding a profile sample.
PROF_SAMPLE_COST_CENTRE
-
Tag: 167 Length: variable Field Word32: capability Field Word64: current profiling tick Field Word8: stack depth Field Word32[]: cost centre stack starting with inner-most (cost centre numbers)
15.5. Biographical profile sample event
A variable-length packet encoding a profile sample.
BIO_PROF_SAMPLE_BEGIN
-
Tag: 166 TODO
15.6. Non-moving GC event output
These events mark various stages of the non-moving collection
lifecycle. These are enabled with the +RTS -lg
event-set.
A typical non-moving collection cycle will look something like the following:
- The preparatory phase of collection will emit the usual events associated with a moving collection. See Garbage collector events for details.
- The concurrent write barrier is enabled and the concurrent mark thread is started. From this point forward mutator threads may emit
CONC_UPD_REM_SET_FLUSH
events, indicating that they have flushed their capability-local update remembered sets. - Concurrent marking begins, denoted by a
CONC_MARK_BEGIN
event. - When the mark queue is depleted a
CONC_MARK_END
is emitted. - If necessary (e.g. due to weak pointer marking), the marking process will continue, returning to step (3) above.
- When the collector has done as much concurrent marking as it can it will enter the post-mark synchronization phase of collection, denoted by a
CONC_SYNC_BEGIN
event. - Mutator threads will suspend execution and, if necessary, flush their update remembered sets (indicated by
CONC_UPD_REM_SET_FLUSH
events). - The collector will do any final marking necessary (indicated by
CONC_MARK_BEGIN
andCONC_MARK_END
events). - The collector will do a small amount of sweeping, disable the write barrier, emit a
CONC_SYNC_END
event, and allow mutators to resume - The collector will begin the concurrent sweep phase, indicated by a
CONC_SWEEP_BEGIN
event. - Once sweeping has concluded a
CONC_SWEEP_END
event will be emitted and the concurrent collector thread will terminate. - A
NONMOVING_HEAP_CENSUS
event will be emitted describing the fragmentation state of the non-moving heap.
CONC_MARK_BEGIN
-
Tag: 200 Length: fixed Marks the beginning of marking by the concurrent collector.
CONC_MARK_END
-
Tag: 201 Length: fixed Field Word32: number of objects which were marked in this marking phase. Marks the end of marking by the concurrent collector.
CONC_SYNC_BEGIN
-
Tag: 202 Length: fixed Marks the beginning of the concurrent garbage collector’s post-mark synchronization phase.
CONC_SYNC_END
-
Tag: 203 Length: fixed Marks the end of the concurrent garbage collector’s post-mark synchronization phase.
CONC_SWEEP_BEGIN
-
Tag: 204 Length: fixed Marks the beginning of the concurrent garbage collector’s sweep phase.
CONC_SWEEP_END
-
Tag: 205 Length: fixed Marks the end of the concurrent garbage collector’s sweep phase.
CONC_UPD_REM_SET_FLUSH
-
Tag: 206 Length: fixed Marks a capability flushing its local update remembered set accumulator.
15.6.1. Non-moving heap census
The non-moving heap census events (enabled with the +RTS -ln
event-set) are intended to provide insight into fragmentation of the non-moving heap.
NONMOVING_HEAP_CENSUS
-
Tag: 207 Length: fixed Field Word8: base-2 logarithm of blk_sz. Field Word32: number of active segments. Field Word32: number of filled segments. Field Word32: number of live blocks. Describes the occupancy of the blk_sz sub-heap.
15.6.2. Ticky counters
Programs compiled with -ticky
and -eventlog
and invoked with +RTS -lT
will emit periodic samples of the ticky entry counters to the eventlog.
TICKY_COUNTER_DEF
-
Tag: 210 Length: variable Field Word64: counter ID Field Word16: arity/field count Field String: argument kinds. This is the same as the synonymous field in the textual ticky summary. Field String: counter name Defines a ticky counter.
TICKY_COUNTER_BEGIN_SAMPLE
-
Tag: 212 Length: fixed Denotes the beginning of an atomic set of ticky-ticky profiler counter samples.
TICKY_COUNTER_SAMPLE
-
Tag: 211 Length: fixed Field Word64: counter ID Field Word64: number of times closures of this type has been entered. Field Word64: number of allocations (words) Field Word64: number of times this has been allocated (words). Only produced for modules compiled with -ticky-allocd
.Records the number of “ticks” recorded by a ticky-ticky counter single the last sample.