printf cheatsheet

Format string

  % [flag]* [minimum_field_width] [precision] [length_modifier] <conversion_specifier>

Flags

Flag	Description
#	The value should be converted to an "alternate form".
0	zero padded. By default, blank padded
-	left adjusted
' '	(A single space) A blank should be left before a positive number (or empty  string)  produced by a signed conversion.
+	A sign is always placed before a number produced by a signed conversion.

Minimum Field Width

"a decimal digit string (with  non-zero first digit). If the value has fewer characters, it will be padded.  In no case does a nonexistent or small field width cause truncation of a field."

Precision

a period ('.')  followed by an optional decimal digit string. It has different meanings for different conversions.

Precision	Description
d, i, o, u, x, and X	minimum number of digits to appear	printf("%.2d", 1) ==> "01"
a, A, e, E, f, and F	number of digits to appear after  the radix  character	printf("%.2f",0.1) ==> "0.10"
g and G	maximum number of significant digits
s and S	maximum number of characters to be printed from a string	printf("%.2s","hello") ==> "he"

Length Modifier

For each conversion specifier, there is expected argument type. For example, for conversion d,  and i, type of arguments should be int. Length Modifiers can be used to specify argument types rather than expected type by default.

Modifier	Conversion	Argument types
hh	d, i, o, u, x, or X	signed char or unsigned char
	n	signed char*
h	d, i, o, u, x, or X	short int or unsigned short int
	b	short int*
l	d, i, o, u, x, or X	long int, or unsigned long int
	n	long int*
	c	wint_t
	s	wchar_t
ll	d, i, o, u, x, or X	long long int, or unsigned long long int
	n	long long int*
L	a, A, e, E, f, F, g, or G	long double
j	d, i, o, u, x, or X	intmax_t, uintmax_t
z	d, i, o, u, x, or X	size_t, ssize_t
t	d, i, o, u, x, or X	ptrdiff_t

Conversion specifier

conversion	arguments	notation
d, i	int argument	signed decimal notation
o, u, x, X	unsigned int	unsigned octal, unsigned decimal, unsigned hexdec notation	abcedf are used for x. ABCDEF are used for X.
e, E	double	rounded and converted in the style [-]d.ddde±dd	precision is 6 by default.
f, F	double	rounded  and  converted  to  decimal  notation in the style [-]ddd.ddd	precision is 6 by default.
g, G	double	converted in style f or e (or F or E for G  conversions). Style e  is  used  if the  exponent from its conversion is less than -4 or greater than or equal to the precision.
a, A	double	converted to hexadecimal notation. for a, (using the letters abcdef) in the style [-]0xh.hhhhp±d;	C99;  not in SUSv2
c	int	converted to an unsigned char, and the resulting character is written
s	const char*	Characters from the array are written.
p	void *	printed in hexadecimal (as if by %#x or %#lx)
n	int *	The number of characters written so far is stored into the integer  indicated  by  the int * (or variant) pointer argument.

Some Hard Drive and File System benchmark tools

IOMeter

 

iozone

http://www.iozone.org

Document: http://www.iozone.org/docs/IOzone_msword_98.pdf
Manual: http://linux.die.net/man/1/iozone

Read, write, re-read, re-write, read backwards, read strided, fread, fwrite, random read/write, pread/pwrite variants

iozone -a | tee result.txt

iozone supports bunch of command line options. I summarized them in following table

Category	Options	Note
Auto mode	-a: record size 4k - 16M, file size 64k - 512M. -z: Used in conjunction with -a to test all possible record sizes. (Normally Iozone omits testing of small record sizes for very large files when used in full automatic mode. ) -A: more coverage
Test file	-f filename: the name for temporary file under test. -F fn1 fn2: # of files should be equal to # of processors/threads
Output	-b filename: output of an Excel compatible file -R: Generate Excel report.
Record size	-r #: record size -y #: minimum record size for auto mode -q #: maximum record size for auto mode
File size	-s #: size of the file to test -g #: maximum file size for auto mode -n #: minimum file size for auto mode
tests	-i #: specifies which test to run 0=write/rewrite, 1=read/re-read, 2=random-read/write, 3=Read-backwards, 4=Re-write-record, 5=stride-read, 6=fwrite/re-fwrite, 7=fread/Re-fread, 8=mixed workload, 9=pwrite/Re-pwrite, 10=pread/Re-pread, 11=pwritev/Re-pwritev, 12=preadv/Re-preadv	One will always need to specify 0 so that any of the following tests will have a file to measure. This means -I 0 creates files used by following tests. -i # -i # -i # is also supported so that one may select more than one test.
	-+p percent_reads: the percentage of threads/processes that will perform read testing in the mixed workload test case
	-+B: sequential mixed workload testing
throughput tests	-t #: Run Iozone in a throughput mode. -T: Use POSIX pthreads for throughput tests	This option allows the user to specify how many threads or processes to have active during the measurement.
processes/threads	-l #: lower limit on number of processes to run -u #: upper limit on number of processes to run
Timing	-c: include close() in timing calculation -e: include fflush(), fsync() in timing calculation
Other control	-H #: Use POSIX async I/O with # async operations -k #: Use POSIX async I/O (no bcopy) with # async operations. -I: use direct I/O if possible -m: use multiple buffers internally -o: Writes are synchronously written to disk -p: purges the processor cache before each file operation. -W Lock file when reading or writing. -K:  Inject some random accesses in the testing.

Examples

It's important to use -I option to turn on DIRECT I/O. Otherwise, linux's page caches (buffer cache) may give you ridiculous fast read speed.

• Auto Mode

• iozone -a -n 512m -g 1g
  
• 
  

• Single Test

• Sequential write, Sequential reads
  iozone -r 64k -s 1g -b excel.xls -R -i 0 -i 1 -I
• Use two processes to test sequential writes, sequential reads
  iozone -r 64k -s 1g -b excel.xls -R -i 0 -i 1 -I -l 2 -u 2
• Use one and two processes to tests (two runs. In first run, one process is created. In second run, two processes are created)
  iozone -r 64k -s 1g -b excel.xls -R -i 0 -i 1 -I -l 1 -u 2
• Random writes, Random reads
  iozone -r 64k -s 1g -b excel.xls-R -i 0 -i 1 -K -I

• Throughput Test

• iozone -t 2
  roughly equivalent to "iozone -l 2 -u 2"

• Mixed Workload Test

• iozone -r 64k -s 1g -b excel.xls -R -i 0 -i 8 -+p 50

Result visualization

./Generate_Graphs  result.txt

It will a directory for each operation (e.g. read, write, fread, fwrite). In each directory, there are two files generated - iozone_gen_out.gnuplot and <operation>.ps (this file is generated after you view the corresponding result using gnuplot).  Under the hood, it uses gnu3d.dem to render the data using Gnuplot after those data files are generated for all tested operations. You can call it directly without regenerating separate data files.

gnuplot gnu3d.dem

There are two more scripts that can be used for visualization - report.pl and iozone_visualization.pl.
When I tried to run them in Linux (using command ./report.pl result.txt), I had following error:

    -bash: ./iozone_visualizer.pl: /usr/bin/perl^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

You can use command perl report.pl result.txt to run it successfully.
The solution is to change those two files from dos type to unix type (mainly the new line character conversion).

sudo aptitude install tofrodos
fromdos report.pl
fromdos iozone_visualizer.pl

Now, you should be able to report.pl and iozone_visualization.pl directly. When they are run, a directory named 'report_result' is created. In the directory are Gnuplot scripts (*.do files) and PNG images for all tested operations. Those PNG images are generated by running those Gnuplot scripts. For example, read.png is generated by running "gnuplot read.do". A HTML page (index.html) is generated by iozone_visualization.pl which contains all of those PNG images in the same page.

Bonnie

http://www.textuality.com/bonnie/

• Bonnie64

  http://code.google.com/p/bonnie-64

• Bonnie++

  After you download the source, just execute following commands to build and run.
    ./configure --prefix=installation_dir
    ./make
    ./make install
    cd <installation_dir>/sbin/
    ./bonnie++

• http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/
  Manual: http://linux.die.net/man/8/bonnie++

Resources

• http://fsbench.filesystems.org/
• http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html