Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
550 lines (417 loc) · 27 KB

profiling.md

File metadata and controls

550 lines (417 loc) · 27 KB

Profiling Startup

There are currently a few different ways at getting timing information from Xamarin.Android & Mono. This document aims to demystify the command-line commands involved in retrieving this data from Android devices.

This document explains many uses of adb at the command-line. On Windows, you will need either adb.exe in your %PATH% or a powershell alias for adb.

Overall Startup

The easiest way to time the complete time of startup is to launch the app by tapping the icon, and run:

# Windows / Powershell
> adb logcat -d | Select-String Displayed

# Mac / Unix
> adb logcat -d | grep Displayed

NOTE: going forward, I will just use grep in examples. On Windows, keep in mind to use Select-String if needed.

Both platforms will output something such as:

09-04 14:33:32.466  1169  1192 I ActivityManager: Displayed com.xamarin.android.helloworld/example.MainActivity: +1s3ms

The ActivityManager system process logs how long it takes for any Android activity to start. This is the best measure of overall time taken: reflecting what a user experiences when launching the app.

You can also run adb logcat -c to clear the log at any point.

Profiling the Runtime

Before launching the app, run the adb command:

> adb shell setprop debug.mono.log timing=bare

After launching the app, we get additional information:

> adb logcat -d | grep monodroid-timing
09-04 14:44:11.968  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.init: Mono runtime init; elapsed: 0s:0::620209
09-04 14:44:11.995  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Assembly load: HelloLibrary.dll preloaded; elapsed: 0s:1::92917
09-04 14:44:11.995  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Finished loading assemblies: preloaded 2 assemblies; wasted time: 0s:1::111927
09-04 14:44:12.026  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.Initialize start
09-04 14:44:12.043  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.Initialize: Logger JIT/etc. time: elapsed 14 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.192  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.Initialize: managed runtime init time: elapsed 148 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.238  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: TypeManager.cctor start: 1567626252195.41
09-04 14:44:12.255  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: TypeManager.cctor time: 1567626252254.66 [elapsed: 59.248 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.255  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.Initialize: TypeManager init time: elapsed 63 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.363  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Android.Runtime.UncaughtExceptionHandler, Mono.Android", 0x7fd311c2cc) start: 1567626252360.4
09-04 14:44:12.420  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567626252420.89 [elapsed: 60.492 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.421  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:62::781621
09-04 14:44:12.437  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Java.Interop.TypeManager+JavaTypeManager, Mono.Android, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null", 0x7fd311b9ec) start: 1567626252437.71
09-04 14:44:12.439  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567626252439.4 [elapsed: 1.684 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.439  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:1::757865
09-04 14:44:12.446  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.Initialize end: elapsed 479 ms
09-04 14:44:12.446  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.init: end native-to-managed transition; elapsed: 0s:443::816399
09-04 14:44:12.446  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.init: end, total time; elapsed: 0s:480::702704
09-04 14:44:12.459  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("HelloWorld.MainActivity, HelloWorld", 0x7fd311ceec) start: 1567626252459.23
09-04 14:44:12.470  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567626252470.37 [elapsed: 11.144 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.470  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:11::259949
09-04 14:44:12.559  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Android.Views.View+IOnClickListenerImplementor, Mono.Android", 0x7fd311b5fc) start: 1567626252559.64
09-04 14:44:12.561  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567626252561.82 [elapsed: 2.182 ms]
09-04 14:44:12.561  9126  9126 I monodroid-timing: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:2::244636

These are timings taken at different points during Xamarin.Android startup: across native and managed code.

In case you have the XA build tree by hand, it is possible to process that information like:

> msbuild /v:d build-tools/timing/timing.csproj /t:LogcatTiming /p:PID=3011  # process id of your application
...
Task "ProcessLogcatTiming"
  Time:      0ms process start, application: '' PID: 3011
  Time:     57ms Message: Runtime.init: Mono runtime init; elapsed: 0s:0::44834
  Time:     65ms Message: Finished loading assemblies: preloaded 1 assemblies; wasted time: 0s:0::49
  Time:     73ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize start
  Time:     78ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize: Logger JIT/etc. time: elapsed 3 ms]
  Time:    101ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize: managed runtime init time: elapsed 22 ms]
  Time:    113ms Message: TypeManager.cctor start: 1567669218343.18
  Time:    116ms Message: TypeManager.cctor time: 1567669218357.74 [elapsed: 14.563 ms]
  Time:    117ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize: TypeManager init time: elapsed 15 ms]
  Time:    156ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Android.Runtime.UncaughtExceptionHandler, Mono.Android", 0xffe3c454) start: 1567669218396.28
  Time:    163ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567669218404.38 [elapsed: 8.097 ms]
  Time:    163ms Message: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:8::800097
  Time:    164ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Java.Interop.TypeManager+JavaTypeManager, Mono.Android, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null", 0xffe3bcf4) start: 1567669218405.08
  Time:    164ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567669218405.86 [elapsed: 0.787 ms]
  Time:    164ms Message: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:0::813062
  Time:    166ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize end: elapsed 105 ms
  Time:    166ms Message: JNIEnv.Initialize end: elapsed 105 ms
  Time:    166ms Message: Runtime.init: end native-to-managed transition; elapsed: 0s:100::17520
  Time:    166ms Message: Runtime.init: end native-to-managed transition; elapsed: 0s:100::17520
  Time:    166ms Message: Runtime.init: end, total time; elapsed: 0s:109::900001
  Time:    173ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("xatemplateaot.MainActivity, xatemplateaot", 0xffe3cbe4) start: 1567669218414.33
  Time:    173ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567669218414.89 [elapsed: 0.552 ms]
  Time:    173ms Message: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:0::594434
  Time:    232ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives ("Android.Views.View+IOnClickListenerImplementor, Mono.Android", 0xffe3bb54) start: 1567669218473.37
  Time:    232ms Message: JNIEnv.RegisterJniNatives total time: 1567669218473.59 [elapsed: 0.219 ms]
  Time:    232ms Message: Runtime.register: end time; elapsed: 0s:0::241370
   -- Performance summary --
  Last timing message: 232ms
Done executing task "ProcessLogcatTiming".
...

An example of these log messages would be this managed call or this native call.

Profiling the AOT Compiler

The application needs to be built with embedded AOT profiler, the profiler needs to be enabled and the application run on device or emulator. That can be done by using BuildAndStartAotProfiling target:

> msbuild /t:BuildAndStartAotProfiling <your.csproj>

Related to that target is $(AndroidAotProfilerPort) property, which can be used to choose the socket port number for communication with the profiler. The default value is 9999.

Once the application starts, the FinishAotProfiling target can be used to collect the profile from the device or emulator:

> msbuild /t:FinishAotProfiling <your.csproj>

The FinishAotProfiling target uses the $(AndroidAotProfilerPort) for socket port number and $(AndroidAotCustomProfilePath) for the newly created profile file, the default value is custom.aprof.

The profile can be used to build your app with AOT profile. Add it to the @(AndroidAotProfile) item group in your .csproj file and set the $(AndroidEnableProfiledAot) property to true. You might also disable the default AOT profile with $(AndroidUseDefaultAotProfile) property. Part of your .csproj file might look like:

<ItemGroup>
  <AndroidAotProfile Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)custom.aprof" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
  <AndroidEnableProfiledAot>true</AndroidEnableProfiledAot>
  <AndroidUseDefaultAotProfile>false</AndroidUseDefaultAotProfile>
</PropertyGroup>

The profile itself can be inspected and optionally filtered by the aprofutil tool.

Using the AOT profile is useful for scenarios like speeding up the startup of your application or other performance critical parts, by selectively AOT'ing only the methods included in the profile.

Profiling the JIT Compiler

Before launching the app, run the adb command:

> adb shell setprop debug.mono.log timing,default

After launching the app, you can find a file that was recorded during startup:

> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld ls files/.__override__
counters.txt
methods.txt

Make sure to use your app's package name instead of com.xamarin.android.helloworld.

You can pull these files to your machine by doing:

> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld cat files/.__override__/counters.txt > counters.txt
> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld cat files/.__override__/methods.txt > methods.txt

If you ever need to reset/clear these directories, you can uninstall/reinstall the app or merely:

> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld rm -r files/.__override__/

counters.txt has some interesting summary information provided by Mono:

## Runtime.register: type=HelloWorld.MainActivity, HelloWorld
JIT statistics
Discarded method code               : 1
Time spent JITting discarded code   : 0.82 ms
Try holes memory size               : 896
Dynamic code allocs                 : 3
Dynamic code bytes                  : 584
Dynamic code frees                  : 0
Unwind info size                    : 5985
Calls to trampolines                : 1994
JIT trampolines                     : 952
Unbox trampolines                   : 2
Static rgctx trampolines            : 7
Async JIT info size                 : 0
Max native code in a domain         : 0
Max code space allocated in a domain: 0
Total code space allocated          : 0
Hazardous pointers                  : 0
Compiled methods                    : 921
Methods from AOT                    : 0
Methods JITted using mono JIT       : 921
Methods JITted using LLVM           : 0
Methods using the interpreter       : 0

methods.txt has the individual JIT times of each method:

JIT method  begin: System.OutOfMemoryException:.ctor (string) elapsed: 0s:20::136721
JIT method   done: System.OutOfMemoryException:.ctor (string) elapsed: 0s:20::605627

This is not particularly readable, so you can use our jit-times command-line tool to get better/sorted output:

# Windows / .NET
jit-times.exe methods.txt > methods-sorted.txt

# Mac / Mono
mono jit-times.exe methods.txt > methods-sorted.txt

Which outputs:

Total (ms) Self (ms) Method
20.08 20.08 System.Reflection.Emit.OpCodes:.cctor ()
23.29 19.61 Java.Interop.JniRuntime:.ctor (Java.Interop.JniRuntime/CreationOptions)
9.34 8.59 Android.Runtime.JNIEnv:Initialize (Android.Runtime.JnienvInitializeArgs*)
5.74 5.74 string:SplitInternal (string,string[],int,System.StringSplitOptions)
5.17 5.17 System.Text.StringBuilder:AppendFormatHelper (System.IFormatProvider,string,System.ParamsArray)
4.74 4.74 Java.Interop.JniRuntime:InitJniBuiltinTypeNameMappings ()
4.60 4.60 Java.Interop.JniRuntime:InitJniBuiltinArrayMappings ()
4.41 4.41 Java.Interop.JniRuntime/JniTypeManager/d__11:MoveNext ()
4.25 4.07 System.MonoCustomAttrs:GetCustomAttributes (System.Reflection.ICustomAttributeProvider,System.Type,bool)
24.31 3.92 Android.Runtime.JNINativeWrapper:CreateDelegate (System.Delegate)
19.64 3.79 Java.Lang.Thread:get_DefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler ()

For further details see jit-times' README.md.

Profiling Managed Code

Before launching the app, you can enable Mono profiling via:

> adb shell setprop debug.mono.profile log:calls

Anything after debug.mono.profile is the --profile switch described on the Mono documentation.

Now when launching the app, you get a new file:

> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld ls files/.__override__
profile.mlpd

This profile.mlpd file is a binary file, so we can't just pipe it to a file with >. I used a known writeable directory on my device such as /sdcard/Download/:

> adb shell run-as com.xamarin.android.helloworld cp files/.__override__/profile.mlpd /sdcard/Download/
> adb pull /sdcard/Download/profile.mlpd
/sdcard/Download/profile.mlpd: 1 file pulled. 24.8 MB/s (823327 bytes in 0.032s)

To view this file in a readable format, you can use mprof-report:

$ mprof-report profile.mlpd > profile.txt

NOTE: on Windows, I used mprof-report from WSL/bash, since it appears to not be distributed in the Mono Windows installer.

Your output will be something like:

Mono log profiler data
	Profiler version: 3.0
	Data version: 17
	Arguments: log:calls,output=/data/user/0/com.xamarin.android.helloworld/files/.__override__/profile.mlpd
	Architecture: armv8
	Operating system: linux
	Mean timer overhead: 47 nanoseconds
	Program startup: Wed Sep  4 10:46:50 2019
	Program ID: 11929
	Server listening on: 44657

JIT summary
	Compiled methods: 1454
	Generated code size: 459916
	JIT helpers: 0
	JIT helpers code size: 0

GC summary
	GC resizes: 0
	Max heap size: 0
	Object moves: 0

Method call summary
Total(ms) Self(ms)      Calls Method name
     465        0          1 (wrapper runtime-invoke) <Module>:runtime_invoke_void_JnienvInitializeArgs* (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
     465        9          1 Android.Runtime.JNIEnv:Initialize (Android.Runtime.JnienvInitializeArgs*)
     171        0          3 (wrapper native-to-managed) Android.Runtime.DynamicMethodNameCounter:3 (intptr,intptr,intptr)
     171        0          3 (wrapper dynamic-method) Android.Runtime.DynamicMethodNameCounter:3 (intptr,intptr,intptr)
     170        2          3 Android.App.Activity:n_OnCreate_Landroid_os_Bundle_ (intptr,intptr,intptr)
     162        6          1 Android.Runtime.AndroidRuntime:.ctor (intptr,intptr,bool,intptr,intptr)
     153        2          3 HelloWorld.MainActivity:OnCreate (Android.OS.Bundle)
     147        0         21 (wrapper runtime-invoke) object:runtime_invoke_void (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
     132        1         14 Java.Interop.JniPeerMembers:.ctor (string,System.Type)
     124        0          8 (wrapper runtime-invoke) object:runtime_invoke_void (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
     117        7          1 Java.Interop.JniRuntime:.ctor (Java.Interop.JniRuntime/CreationOptions)
     106        6         14 Java.Interop.JniPeerMembers:.ctor (string,System.Type,bool,bool)
     105        0         57 Java.Interop.JniRuntime/JniTypeManager:GetTypeSignature (System.Type)
     100        0          4 (wrapper runtime-invoke) <Module>:runtime_invoke_void_intptr_int_intptr_intptr_int (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
     100        2          4 Android.Runtime.JNIEnv:RegisterJniNatives (intptr,int,intptr,intptr,int)
      99        1         57 System.Linq.Enumerable:FirstOrDefault<Java.Interop.JniTypeSignature> (System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1<Java.Interop.JniTypeSignature>)
      99        0         10 Java.Interop.JniEnvironment/InstanceMethods:CallNonvirtualVoidMethod (Java.Interop.JniObjectReference,Java.Interop.JniObjectReference,Java.Interop.JniMethodInfo,Java.Interop.JniArgumentValue*)
      98        5         57 System.Linq.Enumerable:TryGetFirst<Java.Interop.JniTypeSignature> (System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1<Java.Interop.JniTypeSignature>,bool&)

Note: the times in the method call summary above include the time to JIT the method. The JIT time can be significant, for methods which are called just once it can be 50% of that time for example.

Profiling Native Code

simpleperf is a tool included with the Android NDK for profiling native code.

If using the Visual Studio installation, you find this tool in C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\simpleperf. It also requires an installation of python.

Step 1, you will need to setup a shell script inside your app. You will take these files:

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\wrap.sh\asan.arm64-v8a.sh
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\wrap.sh\asan.armeabi-v7a.sh
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\wrap.sh\asan.x86.sh
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\wrap.sh\asan.x86_64.sh

You will need to place these files inside your app as AndroidAsset, renamed to these paths:

  • Assets\lib\arm64-v8a\wrap.sh
  • Assets\lib\armeabi-v7a\wrap.sh
  • Assets\lib\x86\wrap.sh
  • Assets\lib\x86_64\wrap.sh

If you plan on profiling on a single device, I would only do this for the single ABI you need.

To profile app startup, I was running the command:

python app_profiler.py -p com.yourcompany.yourapp -a yourpackage.MainActivity
  • app_profiler.py is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\simpleperf\app_profiler.py"
  • You might additionally need --ndk_path="C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ndk-bundle\simpleperf"

This generates a bunch of files in the current directory, such as: binary_cache\, perf.data, and perf.report.

To view the results, run commands such as:

> python report.py
Cmdline: /data/data/Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration/simpleperf record --in-app --tracepoint-events /data/local/tmp/tracepoint_events -o perf.data -e task-clock:u -f 1000 -g --duration 10 --symfs /data/local/tmp/native_libs/ --app Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration
Arch: x86
Event: task-clock:u (type 1, config 1)
Samples: 1558
Event count: 1558000000

Overhead  Command                                Pid   Tid   Shared Object                                                                                  Symbol
97.88%    Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration  6527  6527  [vdso]                                                                                         __vdso_clock_gettime
0.13%     RenderThread                           6527  6548  [vdso]                                                                                         __vdso_clock_gettime
0.13%     Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration  6527  6527  /system/lib/libdexfile.so                                                                      art::IsValidPartOfMemberNameUtf8(char const**)
0.06%     Binder:6527_3                          6527  6542  [vdso]                                                                                         __vdso_clock_gettime
0.06%     Jit thread pool                        6527  6533  [vdso]                                                                                         __vdso_clock_gettime
0.06%     Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration  6527  6527  /data/app/Mono.Android.DebugRuntime-wbwmv22rlkqD4wNWY5gjpQ==/lib/x86/libmonosgen-32bit-2.0.so  libmonosgen-32bit-2.0.so[+21bf4c]
0.06%     Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration  6527  6527  /data/app/Mono.Android.DebugRuntime-wbwmv22rlkqD4wNWY5gjpQ==/lib/x86/libmonosgen-32bit-2.0.so  libmonosgen-32bit-2.0.so[+23ddf9]
...

Or some other examples:

> python report.py --sort dso
Cmdline: /data/data/Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration/simpleperf record --in-app --tracepoint-events /data/local/tmp/tracepoint_events -o perf.data -e task-clock:u -f 1000 -g --duration 10 --symfs /data/local/tmp/native_libs/ --app Xamarin.Forms_Performance_Integration
Arch: x86
Event: task-clock:u (type 1, config 1)
Samples: 1558
Event count: 1558000000

Overhead  Shared Object
98.14%    [vdso]
0.71%     /system/lib/libart.so
0.58%     /data/app/Mono.Android.DebugRuntime-wbwmv22rlkqD4wNWY5gjpQ==/lib/x86/libmonosgen-32bit-2.0.so
0.32%     /system/lib/libdexfile.so
0.19%     /system/lib/libc.so
0.06%     /system/lib/libandroidfw.so

Or to get a full tree with a GUI:

> python report.py -g --gui

See further details on simpleperf's README.

Profiling MSBuild

At a high level, you can get a performance summary from MSBuild via:

> msbuild YourProject.csproj /clp:performancesummary

This prints out a breakdown for evaluation, and every MSBuild task & target:

Project Evaluation Performance Summary:
       12 ms  samples\HelloWorld\HelloLibrary\HelloLibrary.csproj   1 calls
       98 ms  samples\HelloWorld\HelloWorld.csproj   1 calls

Target Performance Summary:
      275 ms  _UpdateAndroidResgen                       2 calls
      354 ms  _GenerateJavaStubs                         1 calls
      665 ms  _CompileJava                               1 calls
      684 ms  CoreCompile                                2 calls
      865 ms  _ResolveSdks                               2 calls
      953 ms  ResolveProjectReferences                   2 calls
     1219 ms  _CompileToDalvikWithD8                     1 calls

Task Performance Summary:
      681 ms  Csc                                        2 calls
      809 ms  ValidateJavaVersion                        2 calls
      983 ms  MSBuild                                    5 calls
     1217 ms  D8                                         1 calls

Depending on what you're looking for, the MSBuild target timings may be the most useful. <MSBuild/> or <CallTarget/> task calls can be misleading, because they merely invoke other targets and don't spend much time themselves.

See the MSBuild documentation for details about /clp:performancesummary.

MSBuild Binary Logs

Using MSBuild binary logs is helpful for performance profiling, as well as general MSBuild "debugging". You can generate a binary log with:

> msbuild YourProject.csproj /bl

This will generate a msbuild.binlog file in the current directory you can open with the MSBuild Binary Log Viewer.

In addition to showing you absolutely everything about the build, it can show the top 10 most expensive tasks:

Top 10 most expensive tasks
    D8 = 3.895 s
    AndroidApkSigner = 2.555 s
    BuildApk = 2.396 s
    Javac = 2.060 s
    ResolveLibraryProjectImports = 1.246 s
    LinkAssembliesNoShrink = 840 ms
    CallTarget = 814 ms
    Aapt2Link = 812 ms
    Exec = 657 ms
    Aapt2Compile = 623 ms

It also has a timeline view:

MSBuild Log Viewer Timeline

MSBuild Profiling in IDEs

For Visual Studio on Windows, you can use the Project System Tools extension for recording .binlog files. This is extremely useful, as you can get logs for IDE-specific builds, such as design-time builds or builds related to the Android designer.

In Visual Studio for Mac, the only option for measuring build times at the moment is to enable diagnostic build logging. Diagnostic logging includes the results of /clp:performancesummary in the build output window.

Important! Using diagnostic MSBuild logging slows down the build quite a bit! Even a "short" build with no changes can take as much as 3X longer! Keep that in mind while profiling.

Profiling MSBuild with the Mono Profiler

Similiar to how you can use the Mono Profiler on Android, you can also profile MSBuild with mono --profile. With a local build of xamarin-android on macOS, you can run:

$ mono --profile=log:calls,alloc ./bin/Release/bin/xabuild.exe YourProject.csproj

xabuild.exe is a tool for running MSBuild using your local xamarin-android working tree. I would also recommend using a Release build of Xamarin.Android when profiling.

This will create an output.mlpd file in the current directory. To view its contents:

$ mprof-report output.mlpd

This will display output such as:

Allocation summary
     Bytes      Count  Average Type name
 165520032      19363     8548 System.Byte[]
  28813336     432701       66 System.String

Method call summary
Total(ms) Self(ms)      Calls Method name
  139368        1        703 (wrapper runtime-invoke) object:runtime_invoke_void__this__ (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
  132472   132472        287 (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Threading.WaitHandle:Wait_internal (intptr*,int,bool,int)
   71685        2          2 Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.RequestBuilder/DedicatedThreadsTaskScheduler:<InjectThread>b__6_0 ()

NOTE: I've hit an error in the past such as: unhandled profiler event: 0x6f at file offset: 3095192 + 60144 (len: 62655). Sometimes I have just tried again, making sure I'm profiling a Release build.

You can also get stacktrace information:

$ mprof-report --traces output.mlpd > output.txt

I would recomment redirecting this output to a file, as it can generate text well over 100MB!

See the Mono documentation for more details about the profiler.