[collectd] Using an output plugin to produce CSV files usable by Windows Performance Monitor

[Florian Forster]

Hi,

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 04:30:19PM +0100, Sebastian Harl wrote:
> I'm not sure if it makes sense to come up with a new plugin that
> spills out some different CSV output though. Instead, I just had the
> idea to come up with a new plugin that outputs arbitrary formatted
> text where the format is user-defined. I'm not sure how, exactly, that
> should be designed but something like the following configuration
> example comes to my mind right now:

interesting :)

>   <Plugin "text"> # I couldn't come up with a better name yet ;-)

I think `output_text' or something like that would be more intuitive ;)

>     BaseDir "/var/lib/collectd/text"
>     FileName "%h/%p-%i/%t-%j-%Y-%M-%D.txt"
>     Header "epoch;%n"
>     Content "%e;%v\n"
>     ValueSeparator ","
>     Rotation daily

      CounterFormat "counter: %llu"
      GaugeFormat "!%10g!"
    -- or --
      ConvertToRate true
      ValueFormat "%g"

>  * BaseDir: Self-explanatory. The base directory for all files, just
>    like in the csv and rrdtool plugins.

Actually, `csv' and `rrdtool' use ``DataDir'' ;)

>  * FileName: Name of the file to be created for a dispatched value list

>  * Rotation: When to start a new file, like "hourly", "daily",
>    "monthly", "yearly", "never", ...

Why do you think we need both, date and time components as placehold in
the filename and rotation?

> ... and, at least, the following placeholders:
> 
>  * %h: hostname

I'd be in favor of more descriptive placeholders, such as %{host} or
%{ds_values}. Those placeholders are used in the `notification' target,
for example. The short placeholders, such as %Y could then be used for
strftime(3).

> Frankly, my idea sounds rather crazy (even to myself) and I'm not sure
> if it will be useful to anybody else - however, I'd be really powerful
> ... ;-)

Maybe I lost touch with reality again, but why's that crazy? Sounds
perfectly reasonable to me ;)

Regards,
-octo
-- 
Florian octo Forster
Hacker in training
GnuPG: 0x91523C3D
http://verplant.org/
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