oracle / oracle/dtrace

Feature request: Add type information from CTF for userspace providers (USDT and pid)

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Dominant language
C
Stars
189
Forks
23
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Dtrace already has the ability to retrieve type information from CTF for kernel providers (like fbt). It would be great to have this power and flexibility for userspace providers like USDT and pid.

An example use case is for untangling complex struct types in either entry or return probe args[]. A function you're trying to trace may take a generic pointer as an argument, and your probe definition needs to cast the pointer to some complex struct in order to retrieve data from struct members. Defining these structs in Dtrace, and accessing the struct members, may be extremely difficult through other means such as including header files. Types may not be fully defined until compile time. The qemu project is a great example of code that fits this scenario.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by examining the existing CTF type-information retrieval for kernel providers such as fbt, then compare how the USDT and pid userspace providers handle entry and return probe args[]. Done means userspace providers can retrieve complex struct types from CTF for tracing.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, linux
Domain
observability-sre
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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