TheRock/rocm-systems/projects/rocprofiler-systems/examples/trace-time-window/README.md

Trace Time Window

Overview

This example creates a workload with mixed execution patterns to demonstrate time-windowed trace analysis. Five outer functions (outer_a through outer_e) each call an inner() function that alternates between CPU-bound busy-wait loops and sleep-based waiting - every 5th call does a CPU spin instead of sleeping. This creates distinct timing signatures in the trace, making it useful for testing profiling tools' ability to capture and distinguish between CPU-active and idle time windows within the same call graph.

Source Files

• trace-time-window.cpp - Defines inner() with conditional CPU-bound vs. sleep behavior, and five outer_*() wrapper functions (generated via macro) that each call inner(500) with a 500 ms duration. All functions are marked noinline.

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.25+
• C++ compiler

Building

Standalone build:

cmake -B <build_dir> -S <project_root>/examples/trace-time-window
cmake --build <build_dir>

As part of the examples suite:

cmake -B <build_dir> -S <project_root>/examples/
cmake --build <build_dir> --target trace-time-window

NOTE: The target is built in Debug mode to preserve the full call chain.

Running

# Default: 1 iteration (5 outer calls)
./trace-time-window

# Custom: 3 iterations (15 outer calls)
./trace-time-window 3

Arguments:

Position	Description	Default
1	Number of repeat iterations	1

Profiling with rocprofiler-systems

rocprof-sys-run -- ./trace-time-window 2

Recommended Configuration

Variable	Value	Purpose
ROCPROFSYS_TRACE	true	Generate Perfetto trace for timeline visualization
ROCPROFSYS_PROFILE	true	Generate call-stack profile
ROCPROFSYS_VERBOSE	2	Verbose output for debugging trace windows
ROCPROFSYS_LOG_LEVEL	trace	Detailed log output

rocprof-sys-run \
    -e ROCPROFSYS_TRACE=true \
    -e ROCPROFSYS_VERBOSE=2 \
    -- ./trace-time-window 2