TSPLOT(1)

📦
version 1.8.0 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 TSPLOT 💖 (section 1 of the manual, bestie)

okay so before we even start — this is the manual page for tsplot, living in section 1 of the manual. that's it, that's the header, we're folding it in like a lil name tag 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

tsplot — plot several tsung logs on the same charts, for comparison purpose.

like… you have multiple tsung logs and you want them side by side on the same charts?? that's literally the whole job. comparison core. 👑

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

tsplot [ -c configuration file ]  [ -d images output directory ]  [ -v verbose ]  [ legend logfile ]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so Tsung ships with a plotting tool that uses gnuplot, and it makes some graphs out of the data in your tsung.log file. iconic of it.

and tsplot specifically? it can plot data from several tsung.log files onto the same charts series, so you can do further comparison and analyze. it's giving "put them all on one graph and let them fight" 💅

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -c, --config — specifies the configuration file to use. the default is http.en.plots.conf. yes bestie, the default really is spelled like that, we don't make the rules 🫶
  • -d, --outdir — directory where tsplot saves the images it produces. defaults to /tmp/tsung.
  • -v, --verbose — makes tsplot very verbose about what it does. it will tell you everything. oversharing era 💀

🎀 CONFIGURATION 🎀

the configuration file of tsplot lets you define the plots you want to obtain, from their label all the way to the data they will show. the configuration file adopts a .ini file syntax, and each section defines a chart. so organized. so structured. main character energy fr fr.

tsplot comes with two sample configuration files, namely http.plots.en.conf and pgsql.plots.en.conf. they respectively define charts to be plotted for a tsung HTTP test and a tsung PGSQL test. yes they are different names than the default one up in OPTIONS. no, we are not going to talk about it. 😭

a DEFAULT section may be provided, and any element configured here may then be overridden into a specific plot section. defaults, but make them customizable. we love a flexible queen.

another configuration file is used by tsplot: the tsung/stats.conf one. it's used to define by type the statistics to be read into tsung log files, and you shouldn't need to edit it, short of adding support for new tsung statistics. so like, don't touch it unless you're adding something new, okay?? hands off the sacred text 📜

🌈 Common settings 🌈

these can live in the DEFAULT section or in any specific chart section. same vibe, different address.

  • encoding — set here the encoding used thereafter in the file, for labels and titles.
  • dpi — dpi setting of produced charts images.
  • tn_dpi — dpi setting of produced charts thumbnail images.
  • imgtype — type of chart image to produce, as in png or ps.

a complete list might be obtained on the python-matplotlib website, http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

  • xlabel — default label for horizontal axe, often you want seconds or minutes, depending on xfactor.
please note you can also set some defaults for ylabel, but this seems not to be a good idea in practise. that's a direct quote from the elders bestie, we're just passing it along 🙈
  • xfactor — tsung logs statistics in its logfile every 10 seconds. by default, charts will not scale this and have seconds as horizontal axis units. by setting an xfactor of 60, you have a minute precision on horizontal axis. math but make it aesthetic ✨
  • yfactor — same as xfactor, but for vertical axis.

depending on the data you obtain with your tests, you may want to adapt the vertical scale of your plotting. for example, the page.mean statistic is logged in milliseconds by tsung. you may want to display seconds if this unit better fits your measures. then simply set yfactor = 1000. 🧚

for example, set styles = b- g+ r- cx for plotting first dataset (see stats below) with a blue solid line, second with green plus symbols, third with a red line and last with cyan cross symbols.

this could fit a stats = 200.count 400.count stats setting when plotting two tsung logs. look at you, coordinating colors and data. chef's kiss 👨‍🍳💋

you then can define any number of plot, one by section, and give them an arbitrary name. the name must be unique, and will be used for naming output images. no duplicate names bestie, it's not that kind of party.

any option available in the DEFAULT section is also available in any specific chart section, with the same meaning and effect. the specific setting will systematically override the DEFAULT one. specific beats general, every single time, no cap.

  • title — title of the chart, as printed into the resulting image.
  • stats — the statistics properties to use for this plotting, as named in the tsung/stats configuration file. please see this bundled file for a list of what is available.

tsung provides several types of statistics, as documented here: http://tsung.erlang-projects.org/user_manual.html#htoc53. the two main types of statistics used are sample and counter. a third one is gauge but is only use for a single statistic (users).

sample provides count, mean, stdvar, max, min and gmean (global mean) properties, and counter provides only count and totalcount. gauge provide count and max.

the stats setting can accept several stat.property elements, separated by spaces.

examples: stats = users.count to plot the number of simultaneously connected users, and stats = 200.count 400.count to plot given HTTP return codes count, both on the same chart.

please notice tsplot is currently limited to use only one horizontal and only one vertical scales. matplotlib is able to define some more complex drawings, but tsplot is not yet able to benefit from this. so… two scales, that's the limit, that's the vibe check, we move 💀
  • legend — legend prefix, which will be followed by the legend given on command line.

each plot on a chart has a legend entry, you configure here the meaning of the plot (say 'concurrent users') and tsplot will add it the name of the data series being plotted (say 'scenario x'). you'd obtain this legend: 'concurrent users scenario x'. it's literally assembling a sentence and honestly? obsessed. 🥹

  • ylabel — label for vertical axe.

🍓 CONFIGURATION EXAMPLE 🍓

please see the given configuration examples which should be distributed in /usr/share/doc/tsung/tsung-plotter/http.plots.en.conf and /usr/share/doc/tsung/tsung-plotter/pgsql.plots.en.conf. go read them, they're right there, they're free 💖

💀 BUGS 💀

please reports bugs to the mailing list <tsung-users@process-one.net> or in the bug tracker <URL:https://support.process-one.net/browse/TSUN>, see also <URL:https://lists.process-one.net/mailman/listinfo/tsung-users> for archives.

(they said "reports", not "report". we're keeping it. it's part of the charm. ✨)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

tsplot is written by Dimitri Fontaine <dim@tapoueh.org>. king behavior, honestly. 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie!! this version dropped back in February 2007 under the TSPLOT(1) banner — old but still serving looks. mwah, go plot something gorgeous 🌈💅✨

📦 where this page comes from