The basic Data Model for Profile Data

Cost Entities

Cost counts of event types (like L2 Misses) are attributed to cost entities, which are items with relationship to source code or data structures of a given program. Cost entities not only can be simple code or data positions, but also position tupels. E.g., a call has a source and a target, or a data address can have a data type and an code position where its allocation has happened.

The cost entities known to KCachegrind are listed here.

Event Types

Arbitrary event types can be specified in the profile data by giving them a name. Their cost related to a cost entity is a 64-bit integer.

Event types whose costs are specified in a profile data file are called real events. Additionally, one can specify formulas for event types calculated from real events, which are called inherited events.