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https://github.com/uber/pyflame

🔥 Pyflame: A Ptracing Profiler For Python. This project is deprecated and not maintained.
https://github.com/uber/pyflame

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🔥 Pyflame: A Ptracing Profiler For Python. This project is deprecated and not maintained.

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README 

        
# Pyflame: A Ptracing Profiler For Python



[![Build Status](https://api.travis-ci.org/uber/pyflame.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/uber/pyflame) [![Docs Status](https://readthedocs.org/projects/pyflame/badge/?version=latest)](http://pyflame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/?badge=latest) [![COPR Status](https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/eklitzke/pyflame/package/pyflame/status_image/last_build.png)](https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/eklitzke/pyflame/)



(This project is deprecated and not maintained.)



Pyflame is a high performance profiling tool that

generates [flame graphs](http://www.brendangregg.com/flamegraphs.html) for

Python. Pyflame is implemented in C++, and uses the

Linux [ptrace(2)](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/ptrace.2.html) system

call to collect profiling information. It can take snapshots of the Python call

stack without explicit instrumentation, meaning you can profile a program

without modifying its source code. Pyflame is capable of profiling embedded

Python interpreters like [uWSGI](https://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).

It fully supports profiling multi-threaded Python programs.



Pyflame usually introduces significantly less overhead than the builtin

`profile` (or `cProfile`) modules, and emits richer profiling data. The

profiling overhead is low enough that you can use it to profile live processes

in production.



**Full Documentation:** https://pyflame.readthedocs.io



![pyflame](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/2734/17949703/8ef7d08c-6a0b-11e6-8bbd-41f82086d862.png)



## Quickstart



### Building And Installing



For Debian/Ubuntu, install the following:



```bash

# Install build dependencies on Debian or Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install autoconf automake autotools-dev g++ pkg-config python-dev python3-dev libtool make

```



Once you have the build dependencies installed:



```bash

./autogen.sh

./configure

make

```



The `make` command will produce an executable at `src/pyflame` that you can run

and use.



Optionally, if you have `virtualenv` installed, you can test the executable you

produced using `make check`.



### Using Pyflame



The full documentation for using Pyflame

is [here](https://pyflame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage.html). But

here's a quick guide:



```bash

# Attach to PID 12345 and profile it for 1 second

pyflame -p 12345



# Attach to PID 768 and profile it for 5 seconds, sampling every 0.01 seconds

pyflame -s 5 -r 0.01 -p 768



# Run py.test against tests/, emitting sample data to prof.txt

pyflame -o prof.txt -t py.test tests/

```



In all of these cases you will get flame graph data on stdout (or to a file if

you used `-o`). This data is in the format expected by `flamegraph.pl`, which

you can find [here](https://github.com/brendangregg/FlameGraph).



## FAQ



The full FAQ is [here](https://pyflame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html).



### What's The Deal With (idle) Time?



Full

answer

[here](https://pyflame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#what-is-idle-time).

tl;dr: use the `-x` flag to suppress (idle) output.



### What About These Ptrace Errors?



See [here](https://pyflame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#what-are-these-ptrace-permissions-errors).



### How Do I Profile Threaded Applications?



Use the `--threads` option.



### Is There A Way To Just Dump Stack Traces?



Yes, use the `-d` option.