PMGETARCHIVELABEL(3)

NAME
pmGetArchiveLabel, pmGetHighResArchiveLabel - fetch the label record from a set of performance metrics archives

C SYNOPSIS
#include <pcp/pmapi.h>

int pmGetArchiveLabel(pmLogLabel *lp);
int pmGetHighResArchiveLabel(pmHighResLogLabel *lp);

cc ... -lpcp

DESCRIPTION
Within the framework of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP), archives of performance metrics values may be accumulated and saved using the program pmlogger(1) and the LOGIMPORT(3) programming interface.

The routines pmGetArchiveLabel and pmGetHighResArchiveLabel may be used to fetch the label record from a set of archives that has already been opened using pmNewContext(3), or pmDupContext(3), and thereby associated with the current Performance Metrics Application Programming Interface (PMAPI) context.

It is recommended that new applications use the high resolution API and existing applications transition to this interface over time.

The result returned via the pointer lp is a structure that must be pre-allocated by the caller and has one of the following two formats (defined in pmapi.h).

typedef struct {
  int        magic;       /* PM_LOG_MAGIC | archive format version no. */
  pid_t      pid;         /* PID of logger */
  struct timespec start;  /* start of this archive */
  char       hostname[PM_MAX_HOSTNAMELEN];   /* collection host full name */
  char       timezone[PM_MAX_TIMEZONELEN];   /* generic, squashed $TZ */
  char       zoneinfo[PM_MAX_ZONEINFOLEN];   /* local platform $TZ */
} pmHighResLogLabel;

typedef struct {
  int        ll_magic;    /* PM_LOG_MAGIC | archive format version no. */
  pid_t      ll_pid;      /* PID of logger */
  struct timeval ll_start;/* start of this archive */
  char       ll_hostname[PM_LOG_MAXHOSTLEN]; /* name of collection host */
  char       ll_tz[40];   /* $TZ at collection host */
} pmLogLabel;

Both forms can be used with either version 2 or version 3 archives. However, the pmHighResLogLabel structure provides the higher resolution start time stored in the newer format, as well as the full timezone and extended length host name fields. For detailed information about the archive on-disk format, refer to LOGARCHIVE(5).

For an application using pmGetHighResArchiveLabel, the most useful information from the archive label is likely to be in the fields and

The field contains the most detailed timezone information available, and should be used if present (non-zero length string). It will only not be present in the case of version 2 archives - this is a new field added as part of the version 3 format. The field will always be present, however it is the 'squashed' timezone value and in certain situations is not the most accurate timezone.

For older applications using pmGetArchiveLabel, the most useful information from the archive label is likely to be in the fields or Note that the size of the field is (64 bytes) which is less than MAXHOSTNAMELEN (see gethostbyname(3)) on some platforms. These semantics are necessary to retain backwards compatibility with the PCP archive file format.

Both pmGetArchiveLabel and pmGetHighResArchiveLabel return zero for success.

DIAGNOSTICS

PM_ERR_NOCONTEXT
    the current PMAPI context is either invalid, or not associated with a set of archives

PCP ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the file and directory names used by PCP. On each installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values for these variables. The $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5). Values for these variables may be obtained programmatically using the pmGetConfig(3) function.

SEE ALSO
pmlogger(1), LOGIMPORT(3), PMAPI(3), pmDupContext(3), pmGetConfig(3), pmNewContext(3), LOGARCHIVE(5), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).