Re: [PATCH 1/2 RFC] version2, Add time stamp collection to operf and opreport

On Tue, 2015-11-17 at 22:05 -0500, William Cohen wrote:
> There are going to be some machine such as embedded platforms where
> gnuplot may not be available or not installed. Has the code been
> verified to handle this case in a reasonable manner?
> 
> Rather than writing out postscript would it make more sense to
> generate SVG?
> Most webbrowsers can read SVG file directly. 

Will:

Thanks for looking at the patch.  Yes, it is really big so no worries on
it taking a long time.  It is best to take the time and carefully check
it out.

The original project was to just add the time stamps to the XML output.
Then within IBM we had people kicking around ideas on how best to
display the data.  So, I did the perl script and GNU plot as a quick
"proof of concept" to explore different ways of looking at the data. I
got a lot of positive feedback on the plots.  So then in the internal
reviews of the time stamp support patch, I got pushed to formalize and
include the scripts and integrate it into the tools.  That really wasn't
the initial goal for the plotting scripts. Similarly, you had
suggestions of having the scripts called directly by opreport.  The
bottom line is gnuplot/postscript was used just because I know them and
could quickly generate them.  I am not familar with SVG but I can go
look at it.  

No, there wasn't any thought given to embedded platforms.  Again, the
issue is the plotting support "evolved" rather then being a well thought
out deliverable and well designed from the start.  I hate to admit it
but that is the truth of the matter.  :-)

Thanks for the feed back.  I will work on fixing the bug and issues you
found.  I will take a look at SVG to see how that could be used.
Fundamentally, removing the dependency on gnuplot would be desirable. 

                          Carl Love


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