pmIDStr(3)

pmIDStr3

Convert a performance metric identifier into a string

C synopsis

#include <pcp/pmapi.h>

const char *pmIDStr(pmID pmid);
char *pmIDStr_r(pmID pmid, char *buf, int buflen);

cc ... -lpcp

Overview

For use in error and diagnostic messages, pmIDStr returns a `human readable' version of the specified Performance Metric Identifier (PMID). The pmIDStr_r function does the same, but stores the result in a user-supplied buffer buf of length buflen, which should have room for at least 20 bytes.

Internally, a PMID is encoded with three fields: domain, cluster and item. pmIDStr returns a string with each of the fields appearing as decimal numbers, separated by periods.

The string value result from pmIDStr is held in a single static buffer, so the returned value is only valid until the next call to pmIDStr.

Notes

pmIDStr returns a pointer to a static buffer and hence is not thread-safe. Multi-threaded applications should use pmIDStr_r instead.

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). Values for these variables may be obtained programmatically using the pmGetConfig(3) function.

Releases

8 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 6 times.

  1. 5.0
  2. 6.0
  3. 8
  4. 10
  5. 11–12
  6. 13
  7. Arch

From pcp 7.2.2-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.