probe alias (tapset) question

[Kevin Stafford]

I am doing some work on defining system call probe aliases which might 
be useful to a SystemTap end user.
I have defined some elementary tapsets and placed them in the SystemTap 
search path. Consider the following:

[root@localhost]# cat /usr/local/share/systemtap/tapset/ts_send*
# ts_sendmsg.stp
probe kernel.syscall.sendmsg =
        kernel.function("sys_sendmsg")
        {
                fd = $fd

                # this value cannot be exported
                # systemtap does not like void *
                # msg_name = $msg->msg_name

                msg_namelen = $msg->msg_namelen
                msq_iovlen = $msg->msg_iovlen

                # this value cannot be exported
                # systemtap does not like void *
                # msg_control = $msg->msg_control

                flags = $flags
        }
# ts_send.stp
probe kernel.syscall.send =
        kernel.function("sys_sendto")
        {
                fd = $fd
                len = $len
                flags = $flags
                sa_family = $addr->sa_family
                sa_data = $addr->sa_data
                addrlen = $addr_len
        }
# ts_sendto.stp
probe kernel.syscall.sendto =
        kernel.function("sys_sendto")
        {
                fd = $fd
                len = $len
                flags = $flags
                sa_family = $addr->sa_family
                sa_data = $addr->sa_data
                addrlen = $addr_len
        }

So now I am able to access my predefined tapsets:

[root@localhost]# stap -ve 'probe kernel.syscall.send{ }'
...
Running /usr/bin/sudo /usr/local/libexec/systemtap/stpd -r 
/tmp/stapMvXUlE/stap_5102.ko

Works great, however what if a user wants to use more than a single tapset:

[root@localhost]# stap -ve 'probe kernel.syscall.send*{ }'
Created temporary directory "/tmp/stapp3gZvF"
parse error: expected '.' or ',' or '(' or '{' or '='
        saw: operator '*' at <input>:1:26

Or maybe they even want to use all of the system call tapsets:

[root@localhost tapsets]# stap -ve 'probe kernel.syscall.*{ }'
Created temporary directory "/tmp/stapl1w2Ry"
parse error: expected identifier
        saw: operator '*' at <input>:1:22

When defining probe points (ex. kernel.function([M]PATTERN)), 
PATTERN/MPATTERN may
include "*" and "?"  wildcards. This functionality is not available for 
referencing
probe aliases. Is this an intended limitation of tapsets, or should 
my_alias.my_probes.* {}
be supported as well?

-- 
Kevin Stafford
DES 2 | MS 2M3
Beaverton - OR
Linux Technology Center
IBM Systems & Technology
Phone: 1-503-578-3039
Email: kevinrs@us.ibm.com