1NEWHELP(1)                  General Commands Manual                 NEWHELP(1)
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NAME

6       newhelp - generate a performance metrics help database
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SYNOPSIS

9       $PCP_BINADM_DIR/newhelp [-V?]  [-n pmnsfile] [-o outputfile] [file ...]
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DESCRIPTION

12       newhelp generates the Performance Co-Pilot help text files used by Per‐
13       formance Metric Domain Agents (PMDAs).
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15       Normally newhelp operates on the default Performance Metrics Name Space
16       (PMNS),  however if the -n option is specified an alternative namespace
17       is loaded from the file pmnsfile.
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19       When there is only one input file, the base name of the new database is
20       derived  from the name of the input file, otherwise the -o flag must be
21       given to explicitly name the database.  If no input files are supplied,
22       newhelp reads from the standard input stream, in which case the -o flag
23       must be given.
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25       If the output file name is determined to be foo,  newhelp  will  create
26       foo.dir and foo.pag.
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28       The  -V  flag  causes  verbose  messages to be printed while newhelp is
29       parsing its input.
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31       The first line of each entry in a help source file consists of an ``@''
32       character  beginning  the line followed by a space and then the perfor‐
33       mance metric name and a one line description of the metric.   Following
34       lines  (up  to  the  next line beginning with ``@'' or end of file) may
35       contain a verbose help description.  E.g.
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37            #
38            # This is an example of newhelp's input syntax
39            #
40            @ kernel.all.cpu.idle CPU idle time
41            A cumulative count of the number of milliseconds
42            of CPU idle time, summed over all processors.
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44       Three-part numeric metric identifiers (PMIDs) may be used in  place  of
45       metric names, e.g. 60.0.23 rather than kernel.all.cpu.idle in the exam‐
46       ple above.  Other than for dynamic metrics (where the  existence  of  a
47       metric is known to a PMDA, but not visible in the PMNS and hence has no
48       name that could be known to newhelp) use of this syntactic  variant  is
49       not encouraged.
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51       Lines  beginning with ``#'' are ignored, as are blank lines in the file
52       before the first ``@''.  The verbose help text is optional.
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54       As a special case, a ``metric'' name of the form  NNN.MM  (for  numeric
55       NNN  and  MM)  is interpreted as an instance domain identification, and
56       the text describes the instance domain.
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OPTIONS

59       The available command line options are:
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61       -o output, --output=outout
62            Specify base name for output files.
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64       -n pmnsfile, --namespace=pmnsfile
65            Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS(5))  from
66            the file pmnsfile.
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68       -V   Print verbose output.
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70       -?, --help
71            Display usage message and exit.
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FILES

74       $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
75                 default PMNS specification files
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PCP ENVIRONMENT

78       Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the
79       file and directory names used by PCP.  On each installation,  the  file
80       /etc/pcp.conf  contains  the  local  values  for  these variables.  The
81       $PCP_CONF variable may be used to specify an alternative  configuration
82       file, as described in pcp.conf(5).
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84       For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see pmGetOptions(3).
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SEE ALSO

87       chkhelp(1),     PMAPI(3),     pmLookupInDomText(3),    pmLookupText(3),
88       pcp.conf(5), pcp.env(5) and PMNS(5).
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92Performance Co-Pilot                  PCP                           NEWHELP(1)