NAME

       pmcpp - simple preprocessor for the Performance Co-Pilot

SYNOPSIS

       pmcpp [-D name[=value] ...]  [infile]

DESCRIPTION

       pmcpp  provides a very simple pre-processor for manipulating Performance Metric Name Space
       (PMNS) files for the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP).  It is most commonly used  internally  to
       process the PMNS file(s) after pmLoadNameSpace(3) or pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3) is called.

       Input lines are read from infile (or standard input if infile is not specified), processed
       and written to standard output.

       All C-style comments of the form /* ... */ are stripped from the input stream.

       There are no predefined macros for pmcpp although macros may be  defined  on  the  command
       line  using  the  -D  option, where name and value must follow the same rules as described
       below for the #define directive.

       pmcpp accepts the following directives in the input stream (like cpp(1)):

       *  #include "filename"
          or
          #include <filename>
          In either case the directory search path for filename tries filename  first,  then  the
          directory  for  the  command  line  infile  (if any), followed by the $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns
          directory.  #include directives may be nested, up to a maximum depth of 5.

       *  #define name value
          Defines a value for the macro name which must be  a  valid  C-style  name,  so  leading
          alphabetic or ``_'' followed by zero or more alphanumerics or ``_''.  value is optional
          (and defaults to an empty value) but when present it may not contain  white  space  and
          quoting or escaping is not supported.

       *  #undef name
          Removes the macro definition, if any, for name.

       *  #ifdef name
          ...
          #endif
          or
          #ifndef name
          ...
          #endif
          The  enclosing  lines  will  be  stripped  or  included, depending if the macro name is
          defined or not.

       Macro substitution is achieved by breaking the input stream into words separated by  white
       space  or  one of the characters ``.'' or ``:'' - this matches the syntax of the PMNS, see
       pmns(5).  Each word is checked and if it matches a macro name, the word is replaced by the
       macro value, otherwise the word is unchanged.

       There  is generally one output line for each input line, although the line may be empty if
       the text has been stripped due to the handling  of  comments  or  conditional  directives.
       When  there is a change in the input stream, an additional output line is generated of the
       form:

                 # line "name"

       to indicate the following line of output corresponds to line number line of the input file
       name.

       Important cpp(1) features that are not supported by pmcpp include:

       *  #if expr
          ...
          #endif

       *  Nested use of #ifdef or #ifndef.

       *  #else within an #ifdef or #ifndef.

       *  Stripping C++ style comments, as in // comment

       *  Error recovery - the first error encountered by pmcpp will be fatal.

       *  cpp(1) command line options like -U , -P and -I.

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

       cpp(1), pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3), pmLoadNameSpace(3), pmns(5), pcp.conf(5) and pcp.env(5).