Re: [PATCH 1/3] perf sort: Keep output fields in the same level

[Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 10:32:39AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 4)
> 
> It would also be nice to have an export function to save current 'perf 
> top' profiling data and have it available for 'perf report' et al 
> analysis. Ie. frequently I just see an interesting snapshot and decide 
> that it's good for further analysis, freeze the screen and are left 
> with very few options to keep it for further look and reference.

I've thought about this but there are some limitations.  Basically perf
top and perf report aggregates sammples into hist_entry's using the
given sort keys.  That means other information in the samples are gone
already.

For perf top, it only has dso and symbol - plus number of samples and
the total periods.  Other informations like CPU, PID and TIME are not
available so it cannot reconstruct samples precisely.  So it's only
possible to use the same sort keys or a subset of them IMHO.

Do you think it'd be useful even with this?

Thanks,
Namhyung