NAME

       pmParseInterval - convert interval string to timeval structure

C SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcp/pmapi.h>

       int pmParseInterval(const char *string, struct timeval *rslt, char **errmsg);

       cc ... -lpcp

DESCRIPTION

       pmParseInterval parses the argument string specifying an interval of time and fills in the
       tv_sec and tv_usec components of the rslt structure to represent that interval.

       The input string is most commonly the argument following a -t command line option to a PCP
       application, and the syntax is fully described in PCPIntro(1).

DIAGNOSTICS

       pmParseInterval returns 0 and errmsg is undefined if the parsing is successful.

       If the given string does not conform to the required syntax pmParseInterval returns -1 and
       a dynamically allocated error message string in errmsg.  The error message  is  terminated
       with  a  newline  and includes the text of the input string along with an indicator of the
       position at which the error was detected, e.g.
                 4minutes 30mumble
                            ^ -- unexpected value

       In the case of an error, the caller is responsible for  calling  free(3)  to  release  the
       space allocated for errmsg.

SEE ALSO

       PCPIntro(1), free(3), PMAPI(3) and pmParseTimeWindow(3).