The Babeltrace 2 project offers a library with a C API, Python 3 bindings, and a command-line tool (CLI) which makes it very easy for mere mortals to view, convert, transform, and analyze traces.
Babeltrace 2 is also the reference parser implementation of the Common Trace Format (CTF), a versatile trace format produced by various tracers and tools such as LTTng and barectf. The Babeltrace 2 library and its Python bindings can read and write CTF traces.
See Babeltrace’s official website, in
particular the
babeltrace2-intro(7)
manual page, to learn more about the project.
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Note
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Babeltrace 1 vs. Babeltrace 2
The Babeltrace project exists since 2010. In 2020, Babeltrace 2 was released. Babeltrace 2 is a complete rewrite of the library, Python bindings, and CLI. It is plugin-based and offers much more features and potential than Babeltrace 1 while showing comparable performance. Because Babeltrace 2 is still a young major release, some distributions still provide packages for the Babeltrace 1 project. Both projects can coexist on the same system as there are no common files. This file documents the Babeltrace 2 project. |
To build Babeltrace 2.0, you need:
- Compiler
-
-
Any GCC-like compiler with C99 and GNU extension support.
Clang is one of those.
-
Any C++ compiler with C++11 support (for example, GCC ≥ 4.8 and Clang ≥ 3.3).
-
- Tools
-
-
If you build from a Git clone:
-
GNU Automake ≥ 1.12
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GNU Autoconf ≥ 2.69
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GNU Libtool ≥ 2.2
-
flex ≥ 2.5.35
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GNU Bison ≥ 2.4
-
- Libraries
-
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A C library (for example, GNU C Library, musl libc)
-
GLib ≥ 2.28 (Debian/Ubuntu:
libglib2.0-dev; Fedora:glib2-devel)
-
- If you need the
bt2Python bindings - If you need the LTTng debug information filter component class (
filter.lttng-utils.debug-info) -
-
elfutils ≥ 0.154 (Debian/Ubuntu:
libelf-devandlibdw-dev; Fedora:elfutils-develandelfutils-libelf-devel)
-
- If you need the Babeltrace 2 C API HTML documentation
-
-
Doxygen ≥ 1.8.6
-
- If you need the Babeltrace 2 manual pages
- If you need the
bt2Python bindings documentation -
-
Sphinx ≥ 1.3 for Python 3 (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora:
python3-sphinx)
-
To build Babeltrace 2:
-
If you build from a Git clone, do:
$ ./bootstrap
This generates the
configurescript and other important files. -
$ ./configure
The following options can modify the build:
--enable-api-doc-
Build the Babeltrace 2 C API HTML documentation.
--enable-debug-info-
Build the LTTng debug information filter component class (
filter.lttng-utils.debug-info). --enable-man-pages-
Build the Babeltrace 2 manual pages.
--enable-python-bindings-
Build the
bt2Python bindings.You can set the path to custom
python3andpython3-configprograms with thePYTHONandPYTHON_CONFIGenvironment variable. --enable-python-bindings-doc-
Build the
bt2Python bindings documentation. --enable-python-plugins-
Build support for Babeltrace 2 Python plugins.
The following environment variables can modify the build:
BABELTRACE_DEBUG_MODE-
Set to
1to enable the debug mode.The debug mode enables more run-time assertions to detect bugs in the Babeltrace 2 project.
BABELTRACE_DEV_MODE-
Set to
1to enable the developer mode.The Babeltrace 2 developer mode enables more precondition and postcondition assertions to detect programming errors.
BABELTRACE_MINIMAL_LOG_LEVEL-
Set the build-time, minimal logging level for all the project’s modules.
Set to
TRACE,DEBUG, orINFO. BABELTRACE_PLUGIN_PROVIDERS_DIR-
Installation directory of Babeltrace 2 plugin providers.
BABELTRACE_PLUGINS_DIR-
Installation directory of Babeltrace 2 project plugins.
See
./configure --helpto list all the available options and environment variables. -
Build Babeltrace 2:
$ make
To install Babeltrace 2:
-
Do:
# make install
If you are developing a Babeltrace 2 plugin or an application which uses libbabeltrace2, we recommend that:
-
You build Babeltrace 2 from source in developer mode.
The Babeltrace 2 developer mode enables more precondition and postcondition assertions to detect programming errors.
Set
BABELTRACE_DEV_MODE=1when you configure the Babeltrace 2 build. -
You use TRACE as the minimal logging level at build time to have access to more logging, should you need it to debug your plugin or application.
Set
BABELTRACE_MINIMAL_LOG_LEVEL=TRACEwhen you configure the Babeltrace 2 build.
Babeltrace 2 development build configuration command line example:
$ BABELTRACE_DEV_MODE=1 BABELTRACE_MINIMAL_LOG_LEVEL=TRACE ./configure
Babeltrace 2 development build configuration with Python support example:
$ BABELTRACE_DEV_MODE=1 BABELTRACE_MINIMAL_LOG_LEVEL=TRACE ./configure \ --enable-python-bindings --enable-python-plugins
See the Babeltrace 2 C API documentation for more information.
See the Babeltrace website to learn how to use the different parts of the project.
- Libraries
-
-
A C library (for example, GNU C Library, musl libc)
-
GLib ≥ 2.28 (Debian/Ubuntu:
libglib2.0-0; Fedora:glib2)
-
- If you need the
bt2Python bindings -
-
Python ≥ 3.4 (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora:
python3)
-
- If you need the LTTng debug information filter component class (
filter.lttng-utils.debug-info) -
-
elfutils ≥ 0.154 (Debian/Ubuntu:
libelfandlibdw; Fedora:elfutils-libsandelfutils-libelf)
-
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Note
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Babeltrace was born to parse CTF traces produced by LTTng 2.0 and pretty-print their events. Even though Babeltrace is independent from the LTTng project today, their communities remain very close, which is why they share some communication channels and services. |
- Mailing list
- IRC channel
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#lttngon the OFTC network - Bug tracker
- GitHub project
- Continuous integration
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Babeltrace’s master build on LTTng’s CI
- Code review
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babeltrace project on LTTng Review