tree: 32e6fd09a590001006c7b02fbffea12428cec838 [path history] [tgz]
  1. enums.xml
  2. extract_histograms.py
  3. extract_histograms_test.py
  4. find_unmapped_histograms.py
  5. generate_expired_histograms_array.py
  6. generate_expired_histograms_array_unittest.py
  7. histogram_ownership.py
  8. histogram_paths.py
  9. histograms.xml
  10. histograms_print_style.py
  11. merge_xml.py
  12. one-pager.md
  13. OWNERS
  14. PRESUBMIT.py
  15. presubmit_bad_message_reasons.py
  16. presubmit_scheme_histograms.py
  17. pretty_print.py
  18. pretty_print_test.py
  19. print_histogram_names.py
  20. README.md
  21. update_bad_message_reasons.py
  22. update_editor_commands.py
  23. update_extension_histograms.py
  24. update_extension_permission.py
  25. update_feature_policy_enum.py
  26. update_gpu_driver_bug_workaround_entries.py
  27. update_histogram_enum.py
  28. update_net_error_codes.py
  29. update_net_trust_anchors.py
  30. update_policies.py
  31. update_should_allow_open_url_histograms.py
  32. update_use_counter_css.py
  33. update_use_counter_feature_enum.py
  34. validate_format.py
tools/metrics/histograms/README.md

Histogram Guidelines

This document gives the best practices on how to use histograms in code and how to document the histograms for the dashboards. There are three general types of histograms: enumerated histograms, count histograms (for arbitrary numbers), and sparse histograms (for anything when the precision is important over a wide range and/or the range is not possible to specify a priori).

Naming Your Histogram

Histogram names should be in the form Group.Name or Group.Subgroup.Name, etc., where each group organizes related histograms.

Coding (Emitting to Histograms)

Generally you should be using the histogram_functions.h. You can also use the macros in histogram_macros.h. The macros are best used in code where efficiency matters--when the histogram is emitted frequently (i.e., on any regular basis resulting in more than about ten calls per hour) or on a critical path. The macros cache a pointer to the histogram object for efficiency, though this comes at the cost of increased binary size. (130 bytes/macro sounds small but could and does easily add up.) If efficiency isn't a concern, prefer the histogram_functions.h methods.

Don't Use the Same Histogram Logging Call in Multiple Places

These logging macros and functions have long names and sometimes include extra parameters (defining the number of buckets for example). Use a helper function if possible. This leads to shorter, more readable code that's also more resilient to problems that could be introduced when making changes. (One could, for example, erroneously change the bucketing of the histogram in one call but not the other.)

Use Fixed Strings When Using Histogram Macros

When using histogram macros (calls such as UMA_HISTOGRAM_ENUMERATION), you're not allow to construct your string dynamically so that it can vary at a callsite. At a given callsite (preferably you have only one), the string should be the same every time the macro is called. If you need to use dynamic names, use the functions in histogram_functions.h instead of the macros.

Don't Use Same String in Multiple Places

If you must use the histogram name in multiple places, use a compile-time constant of appropriate scope that can be referenced everywhere. Using inline strings in multiple places can lead to errors if you ever need to revise the name and you update one one location and forget another.

Efficiency

Generally, don‘t be concerned about the processing cost of emitting to a histogram (unless you’re using sparse histograms). The normal histogram code is highly optimized. If you are recording to a histogram in particularly performance-sensitive or “hot” code, make sure you're using the histogram macros; see reasons above.

Picking Your Histogram Type

Directly Measure What You Want

Measure exactly what you want, whether that‘s time used for a function call, number of bytes transmitted to fetch a page, number of items in a list, etc. Do not assume you can calculate what you want from other histograms. Most of the ways to do this are incorrect. For example, if you want to know the time taken by a function that all it does is call two other functions, both of which are have histogram logging, you might think you can simply add up those the histograms for those functions to get the total time. This is wrong. If we knew which emissions came from which calls, we could pair them up and derive the total time for the function. However, histograms entries do not come with timestamps--we pair them up appropriately. If you simply add up the two histograms to get the total histogram, you’re implicitly assuming those values are independent, which may not be the case. Directly measure what you care about; don't try to derive it from other data.

Enum Histograms

Enumerated histogram are most appropriate when you have a list of connected / related states that should be analyzed jointly. For example, the set of actions that can be done on the New Tab Page (use the omnibox, click a most visited tile, click a bookmark, etc.) would make a good enumerated histogram. If the total count of your histogram (i.e. the sum across all buckets) is something meaningful--as it is in this example--that is generally a good sign. However, the total count does not have to be meaningful for an enum histogram to still be the right choice.

Enumerated histograms are also appropriate for counting events. Use a simple boolean histogram. It‘s okay if you only log to one bucket (say, true). It’s usually best (though not necessary), if you have a comparison point in the same histogram. For example, if you want to count pages opened from the history page, it might be a useful comparison to have the same histogram record the number of times the history page was opened.

If few buckets will be emitted to, consider using a sparse histogram.

You may append to your enum if the possible states/actions grows. However, you should not reorder, renumber, or otherwise reuse existing values. Definitions for enums recorded in histograms should be prefixed by the following warning:

// These values are persisted to logs. Entries should not be renumbered and
// numeric values should never be reused.

The enums themselves should have explicit enumerator values set (= 0, = 1, = 2), to make it clear that the actual values are important and to make it easy to match the values between the C++ definition and histograms.xml.

For new enums used in histograms, prefer using an enum class with a kMaxValue element, like this:

enum class NewTabPageAction {
  kUseOmnibox = 0,
  kClickTitle = 1,
  kOpenBookmark = 2,
  kMaxValue = kOpenBookmark,
};

kMaxValue is a special enumerator value that shares the value of the highest enumerator: this should be done by assigning it the name of the enumerator with the highest explicit integral value. There is a presubmit check which will enforce this semantic. Enums defined this way have better type checking support from the compiler, allow inferring kMaxValue from the type, and allow switch statements over them will not need to handle an otherwise unused sentinel value.

Enumerators defined in this way should be recorded using the two argument version of UMA_HISTOGRAM_ENUMERATION:

UMA_HISTOGRAM_ENUMERATION("NewTabPageAction", action);

which automatically deduces the range of the enum from kMaxValue.

If you need to record a histogram based on an enum without kMaxValue, you can use the three argument version, which takes the number of buckets as the argument, e.g:

UMA_HISTOGRAM_ENUMERATION("NewTabPageAction", action,
                          NewTabPageAction_MaxValue + 1);

This is often seen with enums defined with a sentinal enumerator value at the end, relying on the compiler to keep the value up to date:

enum class NewTabPageAction {
  kUseOmnibox = 0,
  kClickTitle = 1,
  kOpenBookmark = 2,
  kCount,
};

UMA_HISTOGRAM_ENUMERATION("NewTabPageAction", action, NewTabPageAction::kCount);

Finally, if your enum histogram has a catch-all / miscellaneous bucket, put that bucket first (= 0). This will make the bucket easy to find on the dashboard if later you add additional buckets to your histogram.

Flag Histograms

When adding a new flag in about_flags.cc, you need to add a corresponding entry to enums.xml. This will be automatically verified by the AboutFlagsHistogramTest unit test.

To add a new entry:

  1. Edit enums.xml, adding the feature to the LoginCustomFlags enum section, with any unique value (just make one up, although whatever it is needs to appear in sorted order; pretty_print.py will do this for you).
  2. Build unit_tests, then run unit_tests --gtest_filter='AboutFlagsHistogramTest.*' to compute the correct value.
  3. Update the entry in enums.xml with the correct value, and move it so the list is sorted by value (pretty_print.py will do this for you).
  4. Re-run the test to ensure the value and ordering are correct.

You can also use tools/metrics/histograms/validate_format.py to check the ordering (but not that the value is correct).

Don't remove entries when removing a flag; they are still used to decode data from previous Chrome versions.

Count Histograms

histogram_macros.h provides macros for some common count types such as memory or elapsed time, in addition to general count macros. These have reasonable default values; you will not often need to choose number of buckets or histogram min. You still will need to choose the histogram max (use the advice below).

If none of the default macros work well for you, please thoughtfully choose a min, max, and bucket count for your histogram using the advice below.

Count Histograms: Choosing Min and Max

For histogram max, choose a value so that very few emission to the histogram will exceed the max. If many emissions hit the max, it can be difficult to compute statistics such as average. One rule of thumb is at most 1% of samples should be in the overflow bucket. This allows analysis of the 99th percentile. Err on the side of too large a range versus too short a range. (Remember that if you choose poorly, you'll have to wait for another release cycle to fix it.)

For histogram min, if you care about all possible values (zero and above), choose a min of 1. (All histograms have an underflow bucket; emitted zeros will go there. That's why a min of 1 is appropriate.) Otherwise, choose the min appropriate for your particular situation.

Count Histograms: Choosing Number of Buckets

Choose the smallest number of buckets that will get you the granularity you need. By default count histograms bucket sizes scale exponentially so you can get fine granularity when the numbers are small yet still reasonable resolution for larger numbers. The macros default to 50 buckets (or 100 buckets for histograms with wide ranges) which is appropriate for most purposes. Because histograms pre-allocate all the buckets, the number of buckets selected directly dictate how much memory is used. Do not exceed 100 buckets without good reason (and consider whether [sparse histograms](#When-To-Use-Sparse- Histograms) might work better for you in that case--they do not pre- allocate their buckets).

Timing Histograms

You can easily emit a time duration (time delta) using UMA_HISTOGRAM_TIMES, UMA_HISTOGRAM_MEDIUM_TIMES, and UMA_HISTOGRAM_LONG_TIMES macros, and their friends, as well as helpers such as SCOPED_UMA_HISTOGRAM_TIMER. Many timing histograms are used for performance monitoring; if this is the case for you, please read this document about how to structure timing histograms to make them more useful and actionable.

Percentage or Ratio Histograms

You can easily emit a percentage histogram using the UMA_HISTOGRAM_PERCENTAGE macro provided in histogram_macros.h. You can also easily emit any ratio as a linear histogram (for equally sized buckets).

For such histograms, you should think carefully about when the values are emitted. Normally, you should emit values periodically at a set time interval, such as every 5 minutes. Conversely, we strongly discourage emitting values based on event triggers. For example, we do not recommend recording a ratio at the end of a video playback.

Why? You typically cannot make decisions based on histograms whose values are recorded in response to an event, because such metrics can conflate heavy usage with light usage. It's easier to reason about metrics that route around this source of bias.

Many developers have been bitten by this. For example, it was previously common to emit an actions-per-minute ratio whenever Chrome was backgrounded. Precisely, these metrics computed the number of uses of a particular action during a Chrome session, divided by length of time Chrome had been open. Sometimes, the recorded rate was based on a short interaction with Chrome – a few seconds or a minute. Other times, the recorded rate was based on a long interaction, tens of minutes or hours. These two situations are indistinguishable in the UMA logs – the recorded values can be identical.

This inability to distinguish these two qualitatively different settings make such histograms effectively uninterpretable and not actionable. Emitting at a regular interval avoids the issue. Each value will represent the same amount of time (e.g., one minute of video playback).

Local Histograms

Histograms can be added via Local macros. These will still record locally, but will not be uploaded to UMA and will therefore not be available for analysis. This can be useful for metrics only needed for local debugging. We don't recommend using local histograms outside of that scenario.

Multidimensional Histograms

It is common to be interested in logging multidimensional data - where multiple pieces of information need to be logged together. For example, a developer may be interested in the counts of features X and Y based on whether a user is in state A or B. In this case, they want to know the count of X under state A, as well as the other three permutations.

There is no general purpose solution for this type of analysis. We suggest using the workaround of using an enum of length MxN, where you log each unique pair {state, feature} as a separate entry in the same enum. If this causes a large explosion in data (i.e. >100 enum entries), a sparse histogram may be appropriate. If you are unsure of the best way to proceed, please contact someone from the OWNERS file.

Histogram Expiry

Histogram expiry is specified by ‘expires_after’ attribute in histogram descriptions in histograms.xml. The attribute can be specified as date in YYYY-MM-DD format or as Chrome milestone in M*(e.g. M68) format. After a histogram expires, it will not be recorded (nor uploaded to the UMA servers). The code to record it becomes dead code, and should be removed from the codebase along with marking the histogram definition as obsolete. However, if histogram would remain useful, the expiration should be extended accordingly before it becomes expired. If histogram you care about already expired, see Expired Histogram Whitelist.

In rare cases, the expiry can be set to “never”. This is used to denote metrics of critical importance that are, typically, used for other reports. For example, all metrics of the “heartbeat” are set to never expire. All metrics that never expire must have an XML comment describing why so that it can be audited in the future.

<!-- expires-never: "heartbeat" metric (internal: go/uma-heartbeats) -->

For all the new histograms the use of expiry attribute will be strongly encouraged and enforced by Chrome metrics team through reviews.

How to choose expiry for histograms

For new histograms if it is used for launching a project for which the timeline is known then pick an expiry based on your project timeline. Otherwise, we recommend choosing 3-6 months.

For already existing histograms here are different scenarios:

  • Owner moved to different project - find new owner
  • Owner doesn’t use it, team doesn’t use it - remove
  • Not in use now, but maybe useful in the far future - remove
  • Not in use now, but maybe useful in the near future - pick 3 months or 2 milestone ahead
  • Actively in use now, useful for short term - pick 3-6 month or appropriate number of milestones ahead
  • Actively in use, seems useful for indefinite time - pick 1 year or more

Expired histogram notifier

Expired histogram notifier will notify owners in advance by creating crbugs so that the owners can extend the lifetime of the histogram if needed or deprecate it. It will regularly check all the histograms in histograms.xml and will determine expired histograms or histograms expiring soon. Based on that it will create or update crbugs that will be assigned to histogram owners.

Expired histogram whitelist

If a histogram expires but turns out to be useful, you can add histogram name to the whitelist until the updated expiration date reaches to the stable channel. For adding histogram to the whitelist, see internal documentation Histogram Expiry

Testing

Test your histograms using chrome://histograms. Make sure they're being emitted to when you expect and not emitted to at other times. Also check that the values emitted to are correct. Finally, for count histograms, make sure that buckets capture enough precision for your needs over the range.

Pro tip: You can filter the set of histograms shown on chrome://histograms by specifying a prefix. For example, chrome://histograms/Extensions.Load will show only histograms whose names match the pattern “Extensions.Load*”.

In addition to testing interactively, you can have unit tests examine the values emitted to histograms. See histogram_tester.h for details.

Interpreting the Resulting Data

The top of go/uma-guide has good advice on how to go about analyzing and interpreting the results of UMA data uploaded by users. If you‘re reading this page, you’ve probably just finished adding a histogram to the Chromium source code and you‘re waiting for users to update their version of Chrome to a version that includes your code. In this case, the best advice is to remind you that users who update frequently / quickly are biased. Best take the initial statistics with a grain of salt; they’re probably mostly right but not entirely so.

Revising Histograms

When changing the semantics of a histogram (when it's emitted, what buckets mean, etc.), make it into a new histogram with a new name. Otherwise the “Everything” view on the dashboard will be mixing two different interpretations of the data and make no sense.

Deleting Histograms

Please delete the code that emits to histograms that are no longer needed. Histograms take up memory. Cleaning up histograms that you no longer care about is good! But see the note below on Cleaning Up Histogram Entries.

Documenting Histograms

Document histograms in histograms.xml. There is also a google-internal version of the file for the rare case when the histogram is confidential (added only to Chrome code, not Chromium code; or, an accurate description about how to interpret the histogram would reveal information about Google's plans).

Add Histogram and Documentation in the Same Changelist

If possible, please add the histograms.xml description in the same changelist in which you add the histogram-emitting code. This has several benefits. One, it sometimes happens that the histograms.xml reviewer has questions or concerns about the histogram description that reveal problems with interpretation of the data and call for a different recording strategy. Two, it allows the histogram reviewer to easily review the emission code to see if it comports with these best practices, and to look for other errors.

Understandable to Everyone

Histogram descriptions should be roughly understandable to someone not familiar with your feature. Please add a sentence or two of background if necessary.

It is good practice to note caveats associated with your histogram in this section, such as which platforms are supported (if the set of supported platforms is surprising). E.g., a desktop feature that happens not to be logged on Mac.

State When It Is Recorded

Histogram descriptions should clearly state when the histogram is emitted (profile open? network request received? etc.).

Owners

Histograms need to have owners, who are the current experts on the metric. The owners are the contact points for any questions or maintenance tasks. It‘s a best practice to list multiple owners, so that there’s no single point of failure for such communication.

Being an owner means you are responsible for answering questions about the metric, handling the maintenance if there are functional changes, and deprecating the metric if it outlives its usefulness. If you are using a metric heavily and understand it intimately, feel free to add yourself as an owner. @chromium.org email addresses are preferred.

If an appropriate mailing list is available, it‘s a good idea to include the mailing list as a secondary owner. However, it’s always a best practice to list an individual as the primary owner. Listing an individual owner makes it clearer who is ultimately most responsible for maintaining the metric, which makes it less likely that such maintenance tasks will slip through the cracks.

Notably, owners are asked to evaluate whether histograms have outlived their usefulness. When a histogram is nearing expiry, a robot will file a reminder bug in Monorail. It's important that somebody familiar with the histogram notices and triages such bugs!

Cleaning Up Histogram Entries

Do not delete histograms from histograms.xml. Instead, mark unused histograms as obsolete and annotate them with the date or milestone in the <obsolete> tag entry.

If the histogram used histogram suffixes, mark the suffix entry for the histogram as obsolete as well.

If the histogram is being replaced by a new version:

  • Note in the <obsolete> message the name of the replacement histogram.

  • Make sure the descriptions of the original and replacement histogram are different. It's never appropriate for them to be identical. Either the old description was wrong, and it should be revised to explain what it actually measured, or the old histogram was measuring something not as useful as the replacement, in which case the new histogram is measuring something different and needs to have a new description.

A changelist that marks a histogram as obsolete should be reviewed by all current owners.

Deleting histogram entries would be bad if someone to accidentally reused your old histogram name and thereby corrupts new data with whatever old data is still coming in. It‘s also useful to keep obsolete histogram descriptions in histograms.xml -- that way, if someone is searching for a histogram to answer a particular question, they can learn if there was a histogram at some point that did so even if it isn’t active now.

Histogram Suffixes

It is sometimes useful to record several closely related metrics, which measure the same type of data, with some minor variations. It is often useful to use one or more <histogram_suffixes> elements to save on redundant verbosity in histograms.xml. If a root <histogram> or a <suffix> element is used only to construct a partial name, to be completed by further suffixes, annotate the element with the attribute base="true". This instructs tools not to treat the partial base name as a distinct histogram. Note that suffixes can be applied recursively.

You can also declare ownership of <histogram_suffixes>. If there's no owner specified, the generated histograms will inherit owners from the parents.

As with histogram entries, never delete histogram suffixes. If the suffix expansion is no longer used, mark it as obsolete. You can also mark individual histograms within the suffix as obsolete, indicating the expansion for that histogram is obsolete yet the expansion for other histograms with the same suffix are not.

Enum labels

All histograms, including boolean and sparse histograms, may have enum labels provided via enums.xml. Using labels is encouraged whenever labels would be clearer than raw numeric values.

When To Use Sparse Histograms

Sparse histograms are well suited for recording counts of exact sample values that are sparsely distributed over a large range. They can be used with enums as well as regular integer values. It is often valuable to provide labels in enums.xml.

The implementation uses a lock and a map, whereas other histogram types use a vector and no lock. It is thus more costly to add values to, and each value stored has more overhead, compared to the other histogram types. However it may be more efficient in memory if the total number of sample values is small compared to the range of their values.

Please talk with the metrics team if there are more than a thousand possible different values that you could emit.

For more information, see sparse_histograms.h.