From b2a866975f6cd5859c746f1da39c8f5736c8def2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Masami Hiramatsu (Google)" Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:59:03 +0900 Subject: [PATCH] Documentation: tracing: Add a note about argument and retval access Add a note about the argument and return value accecss will be best effort. Depending on the type, it will be passed via stack or a pair of the registers, but $argN and $retval only support the single register access. Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/169556269377.146934.14829235476649685954.stgit@devnote2/ Suggested-by: Alexei Starovoitov Signed-off-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) --- Documentation/trace/fprobetrace.rst | 8 ++++++-- Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst | 8 ++++++-- 2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/trace/fprobetrace.rst b/Documentation/trace/fprobetrace.rst index 8e9bebcf0a2e..e35e6b18df40 100644 --- a/Documentation/trace/fprobetrace.rst +++ b/Documentation/trace/fprobetrace.rst @@ -59,8 +59,12 @@ Synopsis of fprobe-events and bitfield are supported. (\*1) This is available only when BTF is enabled. - (\*2) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0). - (\*3) only for return probe. + (\*2) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0). Note, this argument access + is best effort, because depending on the argument type, it may be passed on + the stack. But this only support the arguments via registers. + (\*3) only for return probe. Note that this is also best effort. Depending on the + return value type, it might be passed via a pair of registers. But this only + accesses one register. (\*4) this is useful for fetching a field of data structures. (\*5) "u" means user-space dereference. diff --git a/Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst b/Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst index 8a2dfee38145..bf9cecb69fc9 100644 --- a/Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst +++ b/Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst @@ -61,8 +61,12 @@ Synopsis of kprobe_events (x8/x16/x32/x64), "char", "string", "ustring", "symbol", "symstr" and bitfield are supported. - (\*1) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0). - (\*2) only for return probe. + (\*1) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0). Note, this argument access + is best effort, because depending on the argument type, it may be passed on + the stack. But this only support the arguments via registers. + (\*2) only for return probe. Note that this is also best effort. Depending on the + return value type, it might be passed via a pair of registers. But this only + accesses one register. (\*3) this is useful for fetching a field of data structures. (\*4) "u" means user-space dereference. See :ref:`user_mem_access`.