I once had the task of determining the following performance parameters from inside a running application:
- Total virtual memory available
- Virtual memory currently used
- Virtual memory currently used by my process
- Total RAM available
- RAM currently used
- RAM currently used by my process
- % CPU currently used
- % CPU currently used by my process
The code had to run on Windows and Linux. Even though this seems to be a standard task, finding the necessary information in the manuals (WIN32 API, GNU docs) as well as on the Internet took me several days, because there’s so much incomplete/incorrect/outdated information on this topic to be found out there.
In order to save others from going through the same trouble, I thought it would be a good idea to collect all the scattered information plus what I found by trial and error here in one place.
10 s
Windows
Some of the above values are easily available from the appropriate Win32 API, I just list them here for completeness. Others, however, need to be obtained from the Performance Data Helper library (PDH), which is a bit “unintuitive” and takes a lot of painful trial and error to get to work. (At least it took me quite a while, perhaps I’ve been only a bit stupid…)
Note: for clarity all error checking has been omitted from the following code. Do check the return codes…!
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Total Virtual Memory:
#include "windows.h" MEMORYSTATUSEX memInfo; memInfo.dwLength = sizeof(MEMORYSTATUSEX); GlobalMemoryStatusEx(&memInfo); DWORDLONG totalVirtualMem = memInfo.ullTotalPageFile;
Note: The name “TotalPageFile” is a bit misleading here. In reality this parameter gives the “Virtual Memory Size”, which is size of swap file plus installed RAM.
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Virtual Memory currently used:
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
DWORDLONG virtualMemUsed = memInfo.ullTotalPageFile - memInfo.ullAvailPageFile;
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Virtual Memory currently used by current process:
#include "windows.h" #include "psapi.h" PROCESS_MEMORY_COUNTERS_EX pmc; GetProcessMemoryInfo(GetCurrentProcess(), (PROCESS_MEMORY_COUNTERS*)&pmc, sizeof(pmc)); SIZE_T virtualMemUsedByMe = pmc.PrivateUsage;
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Total Physical Memory (RAM):
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
DWORDLONG totalPhysMem = memInfo.ullTotalPhys;
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Physical Memory currently used:
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
DWORDLONG physMemUsed = memInfo.ullTotalPhys - memInfo.ullAvailPhys;
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Physical Memory currently used by current process:
Same code as in “Virtual Memory currently used by current process” and then
SIZE_T physMemUsedByMe = pmc.WorkingSetSize;
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CPU currently used:
#include "TCHAR.h" #include "pdh.h" static PDH_HQUERY cpuQuery; static PDH_HCOUNTER cpuTotal; void init(){ PdhOpenQuery(NULL, NULL, &cpuQuery); // You can also use L"\\Processor(*)\\% Processor Time" and get individual CPU values with PdhGetFormattedCounterArray() PdhAddEnglishCounter(cpuQuery, L"\\Processor(_Total)\\% Processor Time", NULL, &cpuTotal); PdhCollectQueryData(cpuQuery); } double getCurrentValue(){ PDH_FMT_COUNTERVALUE counterVal; PdhCollectQueryData(cpuQuery); PdhGetFormattedCounterValue(cpuTotal, PDH_FMT_DOUBLE, NULL, &counterVal); return counterVal.doubleValue; }
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CPU currently used by current process:
#include "windows.h" static ULARGE_INTEGER lastCPU, lastSysCPU, lastUserCPU; static int numProcessors; static HANDLE self; void init(){ SYSTEM_INFO sysInfo; FILETIME ftime, fsys, fuser; GetSystemInfo(&sysInfo); numProcessors = sysInfo.dwNumberOfProcessors; GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ftime); memcpy(&lastCPU, &ftime, sizeof(FILETIME)); self = GetCurrentProcess(); GetProcessTimes(self, &ftime, &ftime, &fsys, &fuser); memcpy(&lastSysCPU, &fsys, sizeof(FILETIME)); memcpy(&lastUserCPU, &fuser, sizeof(FILETIME)); } double getCurrentValue(){ FILETIME ftime, fsys, fuser; ULARGE_INTEGER now, sys, user; double percent; GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ftime); memcpy(&now, &ftime, sizeof(FILETIME)); GetProcessTimes(self, &ftime, &ftime, &fsys, &fuser); memcpy(&sys, &fsys, sizeof(FILETIME)); memcpy(&user, &fuser, sizeof(FILETIME)); percent = (sys.QuadPart - lastSysCPU.QuadPart) + (user.QuadPart - lastUserCPU.QuadPart); percent /= (now.QuadPart - lastCPU.QuadPart); percent /= numProcessors; lastCPU = now; lastUserCPU = user; lastSysCPU = sys; return percent * 100; }
Linux
On Linux the choice that seemed obvious at first was to use the POSIX APIs like getrusage()
etc. I spent some time trying to get this to work, but never got meaningful values. When I finally checked the kernel sources themselves, I found out that apparently these APIs are not yet completely implemented as of Linux kernel 2.6!?
In the end I got all values via a combination of reading the pseudo-filesystem /proc
and kernel calls.
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Total Virtual Memory:
#include "sys/types.h" #include "sys/sysinfo.h" struct sysinfo memInfo; sysinfo (&memInfo); long long totalVirtualMem = memInfo.totalram; //Add other values in next statement to avoid int overflow on right hand side... totalVirtualMem += memInfo.totalswap; totalVirtualMem *= memInfo.mem_unit;
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Virtual Memory currently used:
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
long long virtualMemUsed = memInfo.totalram - memInfo.freeram; //Add other values in next statement to avoid int overflow on right hand side... virtualMemUsed += memInfo.totalswap - memInfo.freeswap; virtualMemUsed *= memInfo.mem_unit;
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Virtual Memory currently used by current process:
#include "stdlib.h" #include "stdio.h" #include "string.h" int parseLine(char* line){ // This assumes that a digit will be found and the line ends in " Kb". int i = strlen(line); const char* p = line; while (*p <'0' || *p > '9') p++; line[i-3] = '\0'; i = atoi(p); return i; } int getValue(){ //Note: this value is in KB! FILE* file = fopen("/proc/self/status", "r"); int result = -1; char line[128]; while (fgets(line, 128, file) != NULL){ if (strncmp(line, "VmSize:", 7) == 0){ result = parseLine(line); break; } } fclose(file); return result; }
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Total Physical Memory (RAM):
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
long long totalPhysMem = memInfo.totalram; //Multiply in next statement to avoid int overflow on right hand side... totalPhysMem *= memInfo.mem_unit;
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Physical Memory currently used:
Same code as in “Total Virtual Memory” and then
long long physMemUsed = memInfo.totalram - memInfo.freeram; //Multiply in next statement to avoid int overflow on right hand side... physMemUsed *= memInfo.mem_unit;
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Physical Memory currently used by current process:
Change getValue() in “Virtual Memory currently used by current process” as follows:
int getValue(){ //Note: this value is in KB! FILE* file = fopen("/proc/self/status", "r"); int result = -1; char line[128]; while (fgets(line, 128, file) != NULL){ if (strncmp(line, "VmRSS:", 6) == 0){ result = parseLine(line); break; } } fclose(file); return result; }
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CPU currently used:
#include "stdlib.h" #include "stdio.h" #include "string.h" static unsigned long long lastTotalUser, lastTotalUserLow, lastTotalSys, lastTotalIdle; void init(){ FILE* file = fopen("/proc/stat", "r"); fscanf(file, "cpu %llu %llu %llu %llu", &lastTotalUser, &lastTotalUserLow, &lastTotalSys, &lastTotalIdle); fclose(file); } double getCurrentValue(){ double percent; FILE* file; unsigned long long totalUser, totalUserLow, totalSys, totalIdle, total; file = fopen("/proc/stat", "r"); fscanf(file, "cpu %llu %llu %llu %llu", &totalUser, &totalUserLow, &totalSys, &totalIdle); fclose(file); if (totalUser < lastTotalUser || totalUserLow < lastTotalUserLow || totalSys < lastTotalSys || totalIdle < lastTotalIdle){ //Overflow detection. Just skip this value. percent = -1.0; } else{ total = (totalUser - lastTotalUser) + (totalUserLow - lastTotalUserLow) + (totalSys - lastTotalSys); percent = total; total += (totalIdle - lastTotalIdle); percent /= total; percent *= 100; } lastTotalUser = totalUser; lastTotalUserLow = totalUserLow; lastTotalSys = totalSys; lastTotalIdle = totalIdle; return percent; }
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CPU currently used by current process:
#include "stdlib.h" #include "stdio.h" #include "string.h" #include "sys/times.h" #include "sys/vtimes.h" static clock_t lastCPU, lastSysCPU, lastUserCPU; static int numProcessors; void init(){ FILE* file; struct tms timeSample; char line[128]; lastCPU = times(&timeSample); lastSysCPU = timeSample.tms_stime; lastUserCPU = timeSample.tms_utime; file = fopen("/proc/cpuinfo", "r"); numProcessors = 0; while(fgets(line, 128, file) != NULL){ if (strncmp(line, "processor", 9) == 0) numProcessors++; } fclose(file); } double getCurrentValue(){ struct tms timeSample; clock_t now; double percent; now = times(&timeSample); if (now <= lastCPU || timeSample.tms_stime < lastSysCPU || timeSample.tms_utime < lastUserCPU){ //Overflow detection. Just skip this value. percent = -1.0; } else{ percent = (timeSample.tms_stime - lastSysCPU) + (timeSample.tms_utime - lastUserCPU); percent /= (now - lastCPU); percent /= numProcessors; percent *= 100; } lastCPU = now; lastSysCPU = timeSample.tms_stime; lastUserCPU = timeSample.tms_utime; return percent; }
TODO: Other Platforms
I would assume, that some of the Linux code also works for the Unixes, except for the parts that read the /proc pseudo-filesystem. Perhaps on Unix these parts can be replaced by getrusage()
and similar functions?