Profiling ESP32 and ESP8266

galloluigi30101999 · September 25, 2024, 4:36pm

Hi does anyone know any way to profile ESP32 and ESP8266 programs?

In my work I need to know how much memory is missing for the execution of a specific function and a profiler seems to be the best choice.

maxgerhardt · September 25, 2024, 4:48pm

To profile static stack memory usage of a function: Activate build_flags = -fstack-usage (if the compiler version is high enough ) to get .su files that have the stack memory usage of each function in them. (source, source, source).

To profile dynamic memory usage of a function (malloc(), free()): Depends on the exact memory allocation system used. Both ESP8266 and ESP32 core have ways to get heap usage statistics, via e.g. ESP.getFreeHeap(), which you can call during various points of the function.

github.com

esp8266/Arduino/blob/ccea72823ac50290bc05c67350d2be6626e65547/cores/esp8266/Esp.h#L116-L121


      
                  static uint32_t getFreeHeap();
          #if defined(UMM_INFO)
                  static uint32_t getMaxFreeBlockSize();
                  static uint8_t getHeapFragmentation(); // in %
                  static void getHeapStats(uint32_t* free = nullptr, uint16_t* max = nullptr, uint8_t* frag = nullptr) __attribute__((deprecated("Use 'uint32_t*' on max, 2nd argument")));
                  static void getHeapStats(uint32_t* free = nullptr, uint32_t* max = nullptr, uint8_t* frag = nullptr);

github.com

espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/ae052f414ae6eb0f927b1acfb25fa23fa4f91524/cores/esp32/Esp.h#L66-L70


      
          //Internal RAM
          uint32_t getHeapSize();      //total heap size
          uint32_t getFreeHeap();      //available heap
          uint32_t getMinFreeHeap();   //lowest level of free heap since boot
          uint32_t getMaxAllocHeap();  //largest block of heap that can be allocated at once

To profile the static memory usage of the entire firmware, in FLASH and RAM: PIO Home → Inspect.