Provided by: pcp_3.10.8build1_amd64 
NAME
pcp-python - run a python script using a preferred python variant
SYNOPSIS
pcp python [SCRIPT [ARG]...]
DESCRIPTION
pcp-python provides a way to run python scripts using a customisable python binary, rather than embedding
any particular version of python into each script.
This can be useful as it allows version-independent python code to be run anywhere. All python modules
shipped with PCP support versions 2.6 and later (in the python2 series), and 3.3 and later (in the
python3 release series).
Due to python monitoring and collecting scripts being relatively simple in PCP (not requiring new
modules, language features, etc), it has been possible to ensure they work for all of the above python
versions. Thus, it is common for PCP python scripts to use a "shebang" line that invokes pcp-python as
follows:
#!/usr/bin/pcp python
This allows the custom setting to be injected instead of a hard-coded python version, while still
allowing the user to override the python version as follows:
$ PCP_PYTHON_PROG=python3 /usr/bin/pcp python --version
Python 3.3.2
$ PCP_PYTHON_PROG=python2 /usr/bin/pcp python --version
Python 2.7.5
This is convenient for shipping identical scripts on multiple platforms, and for testing different python
versions with the one script (e.g. in the case where multiple versions of python are installed,
PCP_PYTHON_PROG can be set in the local environment to override the global setting).
By default, the value of PCP_PYTHON_PROG from /etc/pcp.conf will be used. The default value of this
configuration parameter is set depending on some heuristics about the target build platform. These
heuristics favour the use of python3 in all recent releases of PCP, for those platforms that support it.
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
pcp(1) and PCPIntro(1).