diff --git a/man/man8/argdist.8 b/man/man8/argdist.8
index a24302fbed4d..b0a539f03032 100644
--- a/man/man8/argdist.8
+++ b/man/man8/argdist.8
@@ -111,6 +111,10 @@ Only parameter values that pass the filter will be collected. This is any valid
 C expression that refers to the parameter values, such as "fd == 1 && length > 16".
 The $entry, $retval, and $latency variables can be used here as well, in return
 probes.
+The filter expression may also use the STRCMP pseudo-function to compare
+a predefined string to a string argument. For example: STRCMP("test.txt", file).
+The order of arguments is important: the first argument MUST be a quoted
+literal string, and the second argument can be a runtime string.
 .TP
 .B [label]
 The label that will be displayed when printing the probed values. By default,
diff --git a/tools/argdist.py b/tools/argdist.py
index 9f41bdeeda84..2e3aad5d976c 100755
--- a/tools/argdist.py
+++ b/tools/argdist.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 
 class Probe(object):
         next_probe_index = 0
+        streq_index = 0
         aliases = {"$PID": "bpf_get_current_pid_tgid()"}
 
         def _substitute_aliases(self, expr):
@@ -174,6 +175,7 @@ def _parse_exprs(self, exprs):
 
         def __init__(self, tool, type, specifier):
                 self.usdt_ctx = None
+                self.streq_functions = ""
                 self.pid = tool.args.pid
                 self.cumulative = tool.args.cumulative or False
                 self.raw_spec = specifier
@@ -242,9 +244,32 @@ def _enable_usdt_probe(self):
                 self.usdt_ctx.enable_probe(
                         self.function, self.probe_func_name)
 
+        def _generate_streq_function(self, string):
+                fname = "streq_%d" % Probe.streq_index
+                Probe.streq_index += 1
+                self.streq_functions += """
+static inline bool %s(char const *ignored, char const *str) {
+        char needle[] = %s;
+        char haystack[sizeof(needle)];
+        bpf_probe_read(&haystack, sizeof(haystack), (void *)str);
+        for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(needle); ++i) {
+                if (needle[i] != haystack[i]) {
+                        return false;
+                }
+        }
+        return true;
+}
+                """ % (fname, string)
+                return fname
+
         def _substitute_exprs(self):
                 def repl(expr):
                         expr = self._substitute_aliases(expr)
+                        matches = re.finditer('STRCMP\\(("[^"]+\\")', expr)
+                        for match in matches:
+                                string = match.group(1)
+                                fname = self._generate_streq_function(string)
+                                expr = expr.replace("STRCMP", fname, 1)
                         return expr.replace("$retval", "PT_REGS_RC(ctx)")
                 for i in range(0, len(self.exprs)):
                         self.exprs[i] = repl(self.exprs[i])
@@ -370,7 +395,7 @@ def generate_text(self):
                 program = program.replace("COLLECT", collect)
                 program = program.replace("PREFIX", prefix)
 
-                return program
+                return self.streq_functions + program
 
         def _attach_u(self):
                 libpath = BPF.find_library(self.library)
diff --git a/tools/argdist_example.txt b/tools/argdist_example.txt
index 71ee238a2d59..44cf9224955c 100644
--- a/tools/argdist_example.txt
+++ b/tools/argdist_example.txt
@@ -277,6 +277,45 @@ t:net:net_dev_start_xmit():u16:args->protocol
 Note that to discover the format of the net:net_dev_start_xmit tracepoint, you
 use the tplist tool (tplist -v net:net_dev_start_xmit).
 
+
+Occasionally, it is useful to filter certain expressions by string. This is not
+trivially supported by BPF, but argdist provides a STRCMP helper you can use in
+filter expressions. For example, to get a histogram of latencies opening a
+specific file, run this:
+
+# argdist -c -H 'r:c:open(char *file):u64:$latency/1000:STRCMP("test.txt",$entry(file))'
+[02:16:38]
+[02:16:39]
+[02:16:40]
+     $latency/1000       : count     distribution
+         0 -> 1          : 0        |                                        |
+         2 -> 3          : 0        |                                        |
+         4 -> 7          : 0        |                                        |
+         8 -> 15         : 0        |                                        |
+        16 -> 31         : 2        |****************************************|
+[02:16:41]
+     $latency/1000       : count     distribution
+         0 -> 1          : 0        |                                        |
+         2 -> 3          : 0        |                                        |
+         4 -> 7          : 0        |                                        |
+         8 -> 15         : 1        |**********                              |
+        16 -> 31         : 4        |****************************************|
+[02:16:42]
+     $latency/1000       : count     distribution
+         0 -> 1          : 0        |                                        |
+         2 -> 3          : 0        |                                        |
+         4 -> 7          : 0        |                                        |
+         8 -> 15         : 1        |********                                |
+        16 -> 31         : 5        |****************************************|
+[02:16:43]
+     $latency/1000       : count     distribution
+         0 -> 1          : 0        |                                        |
+         2 -> 3          : 0        |                                        |
+         4 -> 7          : 0        |                                        |
+         8 -> 15         : 1        |********                                |
+        16 -> 31         : 5        |****************************************|
+
+
 Here's a final example that finds how many write() system calls are performed
 by each process on the system: