perf stat: Stop repeating when ref_perf_stat() returns -1

Exit when run_perf_stat() returns an error to avoid continuously
repeating the same error message. It's not expected that COUNTER_FATAL
or internal errors are recoverable so there's no point in retrying.

This fixes the following flood of error messages for permission issues,
for example when perf_event_paranoid==3:
  perf stat -r 1044 -- false

  Error:
  Access to performance monitoring and observability operations is limited.
  ...
  Error:
  Access to performance monitoring and observability operations is limited.
  ...
  (repeating for 1044 times).

Signed-off-by: Levi Yun <yeoreum.yun@arm.com>
Reviewed-by: James Clark <james.clark@linaro.org>
Cc: nd@arm.com
Cc: howardchu95@gmail.com
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240925132022.2650180-3-yeoreum.yun@arm.com
Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
index 2c46bdbd9914..6cad3435b198 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
@@ -968,6 +968,14 @@ err_out:
 	return err;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Returns -1 for fatal errors which signifies to not continue
+ * when in repeat mode.
+ *
+ * Returns < -1 error codes when stat record is used. These
+ * result in the stat information being displayed, but writing
+ * to the file fails and is non fatal.
+ */
 static int run_perf_stat(int argc, const char **argv, int run_idx)
 {
 	int ret;
@@ -2899,7 +2907,10 @@ int cmd_stat(int argc, const char **argv)
 			evlist__reset_prev_raw_counts(evsel_list);
 
 		status = run_perf_stat(argc, argv, run_idx);
-		if (forever && status != -1 && !interval) {
+		if (status == -1)
+			break;
+
+		if (forever && !interval) {
 			print_counters(NULL, argc, argv);
 			perf_stat__reset_stats();
 		}