init was showing the :HG modifier: $ perf stat usleep 1 Performance counter stats for 'usleep 1': 0.942119 task-clock # 0.454 CPUs utilized 1 context-switches # 0.001 M/sec 0 CPU-migrations # 0.000 K/sec 126 page-faults # 0.134 M/sec 693,193 cycles:HG # 0.736 GHz [40.11%] 407,461 stalled-cycles-frontend:HG # 58.78% frontend cycles idle [72.29%] 365,403 stalled-cycles-backend:HG # 52.71% backend cycles idle 465,982 instructions:HG # 0.67 insns per cycle # 0.87 stalled cycles per insn 89,760 branches:HG # 95.275 M/sec 6,178 branch-misses:HG # 6.88% of all branches 0.002077228 seconds time elapsed While if one explicitely specifies the same events, which will make the parsing code to be called and thus event_attr_init is called: $ perf stat -e task-clock,context-switches,migrations,page-faults,cycles,stalled-cycles-frontend,stalled-cycles-backend,instructions,branches,branch-misses usleep 1 Performance counter stats for 'usleep 1': 1.040349 task-clock # 0.500 CPUs utilized 2 context-switches # 0.002 M/sec 0 CPU-migrations # 0.000 K/sec 127 page-faults # 0.122 M/sec 587,966 cycles # 0.565 GHz [13.18%] 459,167 stalled-cycles-frontend # 78.09% frontend cycles idle 390,249 stalled-cycles-backend # 66.37% backend cycles idle 504,006 instructions # 0.86 insns per cycle # 0.91 stalled cycles per insn 96,455 branches # 92.714 M/sec 6,522 branch-misses # 6.76% of all branches [96.12%] 0.002078681 seconds time elapsed Fix it by introducing a perf_evlist__add_default_attrs method that will call evlist_attr_init in all the perf_event_attr entries before adding the events. Reported-by: Ingo Molnar Cc: David Ahern Cc: Frederic Weisbecker Cc: Jiri Olsa Cc: Mike Galbraith Cc: Namhyung Kim Cc: Paul Mackerras Cc: Peter Zijlstra Cc: Stephane Eranian Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/n/tip-4eysr236r0pgiyum9epwxw7s@git.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo ê £)æ