LAT_PIPE(8) LMBENCH LAT_PIPE(8)

lat_pipe - measure interprocess communication latency through pipes

lat_pipe [ -P <parallelism> ] [ -W <warmups> ] [ -N <repetitions> ]

lat_pipe uses two processes communicating through a Unix pipe to measure interprocess communication latencies. The benchmark passes a token back and forth between the two processes (this sort of benchmark is frequently referred to as a ``hot potato'' benchmark). No other work is done in the processes.

The reported time is in microseconds per round trip and includes the total time, i.e., the context switching overhead is includeded. Output format is like so

Pipe latency: 491 microseconds

Funding for the development of this tool was provided by Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation.

lmbench(8).

Carl Staelin and Larry McVoy

Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are always welcome.

$Date$ (c)1994 Larry McVoy