ARMCLANG: Adding Instrumentation calls for Profiling Functions

Information in this knowledgebase article applies to:

• ARM Compiler Version 6

QUESTION

ARM Compiler 5 (armcc) provides a Compiler option called --gnu_instrument to add instrumentation calls for profiling entry and exit to functions.

This option causes an error with ARM Compiler 6. 

Is there an equivalent Compiler option in ARM Compiler Version 6 that can be used for profiling functions?

ANSWER

Profiling in this manner is not officially supported with ARM Compiler 6 and has been deprecated in ARM Compiler 5 from ARM Compiler Version 5.05 onwards.

There is a [COMMUNITY] option -finstrument-functions which allows you to add the same calls to __cyg_profile_func_enter() and __cyg_profile_func_exit().

Please note that [COMMUNITY] features are not officially supported ARM product features, and are available in the Compiler tools as a result of work done by the wider Clang/LLVM community.

MORE INFORMATION

• Refer to Support level definitions in the Arm Compiler armclang Reference Guide Version 6.12.
• Refer to __attribute__((no_instrument_function)) function a in the Compiler User Guide.

Last Reviewed: Thursday, October 29, 2020