newhelp - generate a performance metrics help database
$PCP_BINADM_DIR/newhelp [
-vV?] [
-n pmnsfile] [
-o outputfile] [
file ...]
newhelp generates the Performance Co-Pilot help text files used by
Performance Metric Domain Agents (PMDAs).
Normally
newhelp operates on the default Performance Metrics Name Space
(PMNS), however if the
-n option is specified an alternative namespace
is loaded from the file
pmnsfile.
When there is only one input file, the base name of the new database is derived
from the name of the input
file, otherwise the
-o flag must be
given to explicitly name the database. If no input files are supplied,
newhelp reads from the standard input stream, in which case the
-o flag must be given.
If the output file name is determined to be
foo,
newhelp will
create
foo.dir and
foo.pag.
The
-V flag causes verbose messages to be printed while
newhelp is
parsing its input.
The first line of each entry in a help source file consists of an ``@''
character beginning the line followed by a space and then the performance
metric name and a one line description of the metric. Following lines (up to
the next line beginning with ``@'' or end of file) may contain a verbose help
description. E.g.
#
# This is an example of newhelp's input syntax
#
@ kernel.all.cpu.idle CPU idle time
A cumulative count of the number of milliseconds
of CPU idle time, summed over all processors.
Three-part numeric metric identifiers (PMIDs) may be used in place of metric
names, e.g. 60.0.23 rather than kernel.all.cpu.idle in the example above.
Other than for dynamic metrics (where the existence of a metric is known to a
PMDA, but not visible in the PMNS and hence has no name that could be known to
newhelp) use of this syntactic variant is not encouraged.
Lines beginning with ``#'' are ignored, as are blank lines in the file before
the first ``@''. The verbose help text is optional.
As a special case, a ``metric'' name of the form
NNN.MM (for numeric
NNN and
MM) is interpreted as an instance domain identification,
and the text describes the instance domain.
The available command line options are:
-
-o output, --output=outout
- Specify base name for output files.
-
-n pmnsfile,
--namespace=pmnsfile
- Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space
(PMNS(5)) from the file pmnsfile.
-
-v version,
--version=version
- Set output version. This options is deprecated, the only
supported value is 2.
-
-V, --verbose
- Print verbose output.
-
-?, --help
- Display usage message and exit.
- $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
- default PMNS specification files
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).
For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see
pmGetOptions(3).
chkhelp(1),
PMAPI(3),
pmLookupInDomText(3),
pmLookupText(3),
pcp.conf(5),
pcp.env(5) and
PMNS(5).