NAME

       newhelp - generate a performance metrics help database

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/newhelp [-V] [-n pmnsfile] [-o outputfile] [-v version] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

       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.

       Although  historically  there  have  been  multiple  help  text  file  formats, the only format currently
       supported using the -v option is version 2, and this is the default if no -v flag is provided.

       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.

FILES

       $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
                 default PMNS specification files

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).

SEE ALSO

       chkhelp(1), PMAPI(3), pmLookupInDomText(3), pmLookupText(3), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).