NAME

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

C SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcp/pmapi.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).