Performance profiling on Linux

Question

What are the best tools for profiling C/C++ applications on *nix?

(I\'m hoping to profile a server that is a mix of (blocking) file IO, epoll for network and fork()/

Answer 1

If you can take your application to freeBSD, OS X , or Solaris you can use dtrace, although dtrace is an analyst oriented tool -- i.e., you need to drive it -- read: script it. Nothing else can give you the level of granularity you need; Dtrace can not just profile the latencies of function calls in user-land; it can also follow a context switch into the kernel.