C SYNOPSIS

#include <pcp/pmapi.h>

char *pmGetConfig(const char *variable)

cc ... -lpcp

DESCRIPTION

The pmGetConfig function searches for variable first in the environment and then, if not found, in the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) configuration file and returns the string result. If variable is not already in the environment, it is added with a call to putenv(3) before returning.

The default location of the PCP configuration file is /etc/pcp.conf but this may be changed by setting PCP_CONF in the environment to a new location, as described in pcp.conf(4).

RETURN VALUE

If variable is not found in either the environment nor the PCP configuration file (or the PCP configuration file is not found and PCP_CONF is not set in the environment), then a fatal error message is printed and the process will exit(2). Although this sounds drastic, it is the only course of action available because the PCP configuration/installation is fatally flawed.

If this function returns, the returned value points to a string in the environment and so changing it is a bad idea. This function returns the same type as the getenv(3) function (which should probably be a const char *).

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

DOCUMENTATION CAVEAT

This manual page originated from an earlier release of PCP for IRIX. Although some porting effort has been made, there may be some remaining inconsistencies with PCP for Linux (and for other operating systems). When this documentation is updated, this caveat will be removed.