forp PHP profiler

Monday. October 12, 2015 - 7 mins

PHP profiling

Introduction

forp is a lightweight PHP extension which provides PHP profile datas.

Summary of features :

measurement of time and allocated memory for each function
CPU usage
file and line number of the function call
output as Google’s Trace Event format
caption of functions
grouping of functions
aliases of functions (useful for anonymous functions)

forp is non intrusive, it provides PHP annotations to do its work.

Hello world

Example :

<?php
// first thing to do, enable forp profiler
forp_start();

// here, our PHP code we want to profile
function foo()
{
    echo "Hello world !\n";
};

foo();

// stop forp buffering
forp_end();

// get the stack as an array
$profileStack = forp_dump();

print_r($profileStack);

Result :

Hello world !
Array
(
    [utime] => 0
    [stime] => 0
    [stack] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [file] => /home/anthony/phpsrc/php-5.3.8/ext/forp/forp.php
                    [function] => {main}
                    [usec] => 94
                    [pusec] => 6
                    [bytes] => 524
                    [level] => 0
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [file] => /home/anthony/phpsrc/php-5.3.8/ext/forp/forp.php
                    [function] => foo
                    [lineno] => 10
                    [usec] => 9
                    [pusec] => 6
                    [bytes] => 120
                    [level] => 1
                    [parent] => 0
                )
        )
)

Example with annotations

Example :

<?php
// first thing to do, enable forp profiler
forp_start();

/**
 * here, our PHP code we want to profile
 * with annotations
 *
 * @ProfileGroup("Test")
 * @ProfileCaption("Foo #1")
 * @ProfileAlias("foo")
 */
function fooWithAnnotations($bar)
{
    return 'Foo ' . $bar;
}

echo "foo = " . fooWithAnnotations("bar") . "\n";

// stop forp buffering
forp_end();

// get the stack as an array
$profileStack = forp_dump();

echo "forp stack = \n";
print_r($profileStack);

Result :

foo = Foo bar
forp stack =
Array
(
    [utime] => 0
    [stime] => 0
    [stack] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [file] => /home/anthony/phpsrc/php-5.3.8/ext/forp/forp.php
                    [function] => {main}
                    [usec] => 113
                    [pusec] => 6
                    [bytes] => 568
                    [level] => 0
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [file] => /home/anthony/phpsrc/php-5.3.8/ext/forp/forp.php
                    [function] => foo
                    [lineno] => 41
                    [groups] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => Test
                        )

                    [caption] => Foo bar
                    [usec] => 39
                    [pusec] => 24
                    [bytes] => 124
                    [level] => 1
                    [parent] => 0
                )

        )

)

php.ini options

forp.max_nesting_level : default 50
forp.no_internals : default 0

forp PHP API

forp_start(flags*) : start forp collector
forp_end() : stop forp collector
forp_dump() : return stack as flat array
forp_print() : display forp stack (SAPI CLI)

forp_start() flags

FORP_FLAG_CPU : activate collect of time
FORP_FLAG_MEMORY : activate collect of memory usage
FORP_FLAG_CPU : retrieve the cpu usage
FORP_FLAG_CAPTION : enable caption handler
FORP_FLAG_ALIAS : enable alias handler
FORP_FLAG_GROUPS : enable groups handler
FORP_FLAG_HIGHLIGHT : enable HTML highlighting

forp_dump()

forp_dump() provides an array composed of :

global fields : utime, stime …
stack : a flat PHP array of stack entries.

Global fields :

utime : CPU used for user function calls
stime : CPU used for system calls

Fields of a stack entry :

file : file of the call
lineno : line number of the call
class : Class name
function : function name
groups : list of associated groups
caption : caption of the function
usec : function time (without the profiling overhead)
pusec : inner profiling time (without executing the function)
bytes : memory usage of the function
level : depth level from the forp_start call
parent : parent index (numeric)

forp_json()

Prints stack as JSON string directly on stdout. This is the fastest method in order to send the stack to a JSON compatible client.

See forp_dump() for its structure.

forp_json_google_tracer()

forp_json_google_tracer($filepath) will output stack as Google Trace Event format.

Usage :

// Start profiler
forp_start();

my_complex_function();

// Stop profiler
forp_end();

// Get JSON and save it into file
forp_json_google_tracer("/tmp/output.json");

Then, open Google Chrome or Chromium browser and go to chrome://tracing/. Load the output file and enjoy the result.

Example output with an existing Drupal website

forp_inspect()

forp_inspect(‘symbol’, $symbol) will output a detailed representation of a variable in the forp_dump() result.

Usage :

$var = array(0 => "my", "strkey" => "inspected", 3 => "array");
forp_inspect('var', $var);
print_r(forp_dump());

Result :

Array
(
    [utime] => 0
    [stime] => 0
    [inspect] => Array
        (
            [var] => Array
                (
                    [type] => array
                    [size] => 3
                    [value] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => Array
                                (
                                    [type] => string
                                    [value] => my
                                )

                            [strkey] => Array
                                (
                                    [type] => string
                                    [value] => inspected
                                )

                            [3] => Array
                                (
                                    [type] => string
                                    [value] => array
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

Available annotations

@ProfileGroup

Sets groups that function belongs.

/**
 * @ProfileGroup("data loading","rendering")
 */
function exec($query) {
    /* ... */
}

@ProfileCaption

Adds caption to functions. Caption string may contain references (#) to parameters of the function.

/**
 * @ProfileCaption("Find row for pk #1")
 */
public function findByPk($pk) {
    /* ... */
}

@ProfileAlias

Gives an alias name to a function. Useful for anonymous functions

/**
 * @ProfileAlias("MyAnonymousFunction")
 */
$fn = function() {
    /* ... */
}

@ProfileHighlight

Adds a frame around output generated by the function.

/**
 * @ProfileHighlight("1")
 */
function render($datas) {
    /* ... */
}

Demos / UI

forp provides a structure so simple that it’s easy to make your own UI.

But, if you are looking for a user interface with a lot of features, we’ve made a rich JavaScript client : forp-ui

You can see forp in action with the fastest PHP Frameworks :

Beaba (https://github.com/ichiriac/beaba-light)
Slim (https://github.com/codeguy/Slim)
Silex (https://github.com/fabpot/Silex)
Laravel (https://github.com/laravel/laravel)

groups

Build status

Installation, requirements

Requirements

php5-dev

apt-get install php5-dev

Install with Composer

Require forp-PHP-profiler in your project composer.json

"require-dev":       {
  "aterrien/forp-profiler" : "~1.1"
},
"repositories" : [
  {
     "type" : "git",
     "url"  : "git@github.com:aterrien/forp-PHP-profiler.git"
  }
]

run Composer install

php composer.phar install

compile

cd vendor/aterrien/forp-profiler/ext/forp
phpize
./configure
make && make install

and enable forp in your php.ini

extension=forp.so

or opt for “old school” installation

Use current release

wget https://github.com/aterrien/forp/archive/1.1.0.tar.gz
tar -xvzf 1.1.0.tar.gz
cd 1.1.0/ext/forp

OR dev-master (unstable, at your own risk)

git clone https://github.com/aterrien/forp-PHP-profiler
cd forp-PHP-profiler/ext/forp

compile

phpize
./configure
make && make install

and enable forp in your php.ini

extension=forp.so

Tested OS and platforms

Apache

Apache/2.2.16 (Debian)

PHP 5.3.8 (cli) (built: Sep 25 2012 22:55:18)

Nginx / php-fpm

nginx version: nginx/1.2.6

PHP 5.3.21-1~dotdeb.0 (fpm-fcgi) PHP 5.4.10-1~dotdeb.0 (fpm-fcgi)

Cloud / AWS

Centos 6.3 (AMI)

Apache/2.2.15 (Unix)

PHP 5.4.13 (cli) (built: Mar 15 2013 11:27:51)

Contributors

Anthony Terrien, Ioan Chiriac, Alexis Okuwa, TOMHTML

aterrien

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