newhelp(1)

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 Namespace
     (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.

     There are currently two help text file formats - the format used can be
     specified using the -v option.  Previous versions of PCP on IRIX used
     ndbm(3B) files to store the help text.  Provided that a particular
     platfrom has support for NDBM compiled into newhelp, this format may be
     selected using version 1, but it is not recommended unless the associated
     PMDA uses the older protocols and is linked with libpcp_pmda.so.1.

     The current PCP version uses a more compact storage scheme for the help
     text files, and this may be selected using version 2.  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.
     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(4).

SEE ALSO
     chkhelp(1), PMAPI(3), pmLookupInDomText(3), pmLookupText(3), pcp.conf(4)
     and pcp.env(4).