LOGIMPORT(3)

NAME
LOGIMPORT - introduction to the library for importing data and creating a PCP archive

C SYNOPSIS
#include <pcp/pmapi.h>
#include <pcp/impl.h>
#include <pcp/import.h>

cc ... -lpcp_import -lpcp

Perl SYNOPSIS
use PCP::LogImport;

DESCRIPTION
The Performance Co-Pilot Log Import (LOGIMPORT) API is a library (and Perl wrapper) that supports the creation of PCP archives from external sources of performance data, either in the form of historical logs and spreadsheets or from real-time sources that are not integrated as a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) under the control of pmcd(1).

The typical usage for LOGIMPORT would involve:

•   An initial call to pmiStart(3).

•   Optional calls to pmiSetHostname(3) and/or pmiSetTimezone(3) to set the hostname and timezone for the source of the performance data.

•   One or more calls to pmiAddMetric(3) to define performance metrics.

•   One or more calls to pmiAddInstance(3) to define instances associated with the metrics.

•   Optional calls to pmiGetHandle(3) to defined convenience handles for metric-instance pairs.

•   A main loop in which performance data is injested and for each sample time interval, the PCP archive record is constructed by calls to pmiPutValue(3) and/or pmiPutValueHandle(3), followed by a call to pmiWrite(3) to flush all data and any associated new metadata to the PCP archive. Alternatively, pmiPutResult(3) could be used to package and process all the data for one sample time interval.

•   Once the input source of data has been consumed, calling pmiEnd(3) to complete the PCP archive creation and close all open files.

If new metrics and/or instances are discovered during the data injestion, these can be added by subsequent calls to pmiAddMetric(3) and/or pmiAddInstance(3), provided all the metrics and instances have been defined before a call to pmiGetHandle(3), pmiPutValue(3)or pmiPutResult(3) that references those metrics and instances.

SEE ALSO
pmcd(1), pmlogger(1), pmiGetHandle(3), pmiAddInstance(3), pmiAddMetric(3), pmiEnd(3), pmiErrStr(3), pmiPutMark(3), pmiPutResult(3), pmiPutValue(3), pmiPutValueHandle(3), pmiSetHostname(3), pmiSetTimezone(3), pmiStart(3) and pmiWrite(3).