[llvm-dev] Benchmarks for LLVM-generated Binaries

[Dean Michael Berris via llvm-dev]

> On 2 Sep 2016, at 01:14, Renato Golin <renato.golin at linaro.org> wrote:
> 
> On 1 September 2016 at 07:45, Dean Michael Berris via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>> I've lately been wondering where benchmarks for LLVM-generated binaries are hosted, and whether they're tracked over time.
> 
> Hi Dean,
> 
> Do you mean Perf?
> 
> http://llvm.org/perf/
> 
> Example, ARM and AArch64 tracking performance at:
> 
> http://llvm.org/perf/db_default/v4/nts/machine/41
> http://llvm.org/perf/db_default/v4/nts/machine/46
> 

Awesome stuff, thanks Renato!

> 
>> - Is the test-suite repository the right place to put these generated-code benchmarks?
> 
> I believe there would be the best place, yes.
> 
> 
>> - Are there any objections to using a later version of the Google benchmarking library [0] in the test-suite?
> 
> While this looks like a very nice tool set, I wonder how we're going
> to integrate it.
> 
> Checking it out in the test-suite wouldn't be the best option (version
> rot), but neither would be requiring people to install it before
> running the test-suite, especially if the installation process isn't
> as easy as "apt-get install", like all the other dependencies.
> 

I think it should be possible to have a snapshot of it included. I don't know what the licensing implications are (I'm not a lawyer, but I know someone who is -- paging Danny Berlin).

I'm not as concerned about falling behind on versions there though mostly because it should be trivial to update it if we need it. Though like you, I agree this isn't the best way of doing it. :)

> 
>> - Are the docs on the Testing Infrastructure Guide still relevant and up-to-date, and is that a good starting point for exploration here?
> 
> Unfortunately, that's mostly for the "make check" tests, not for the
> test-suite. The test-suite execution is covered by LNT's doc
> (http://llvm.org/docs/lnt), but it's mostly about LNT internals and
> not the test-suite itself.
> 
> However, it's not that hard to understand the test-suite structure. To
> add new tests, you just need to find a suitable place { (SingleSource
> / MultiSource) / Benchmarks / YourBench } and copy ( CMakeFiles.txt,
> Makefile, lit.local.cfg ), change to your needs, and it should be
> done.
> 

Thanks -- this doesn't tell me how to run the test though... I could certainly do it by hand (i.e. build the executables and run it) and I suspect I'm not alone in wanting to be able to do this easily through the CMake+Ninja (or other generator) workflow.

Do you know if someone is working on that aspect?

Cheers

-- Dean