PMPRINTF(3)						     Library Functions Manual						       PMPRINTF(3)

NAME

       pmprintf, pmflush - print formatted output in a window or to standard error

C SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcp/pmapi.h>

       int pmprintf(const char *fmt, ... /*args*/);
       int pmflush(void);

       cc ... -lpcp

DESCRIPTION

       The  combination  of  pmprintf and pmflush produces output in either an xconfirm(1) window, on the standard error stream, or to a file in a
       manner similar to fprintf(3).  The fmt argument is used to control the conversion, formatting, and printing of  the  variable  length  args
       list.  The output technique is controlled via an environment variable.

       pmprintf appends the formatted message string to an internal buffer shared by the two routines, without actually producing any output.

       pmflush	causes	the  internal  buffer to be either displayed in a window, printed on standard error, or flushed to a file and the internal
       buffer to be cleared.

ENVIRONMENT

       The environment variable PCP_STDERR controls the output technique used by pmflush:

	   If PCP_STDERR is unset, the text is written onto the stderr stream of the caller.

	   If PCP_STDERR is set to the literal reserved word DISPLAY then the text will be displayed as a GUI dialog using xconfirm(1).

	   If PCP_STDERR is set to any other value then pmflush interprets the value as a file name and appends the text to that file.	 The  file
	   is created if it doesn't already exist, and in this case if the file creation fails, then stderr is used instead).

FILES

       pmprintf uses the mkstemp(3) function to create a temporary file.  This temporary file is deleted when pmflush is called.

DIAGNOSTICS

       On  successful  completion, pmprintf returns the number of characters transmitted, while pmflush returns a value of zero on successful com-
       pletion.

       For either routine, a negative value is returned if an error was encountered, and this can be passed to pmErrStr(3) to obtain  the  associ-
       ated error message.

SEE ALSO

       pmdbg(1), fprintf(3), mkstemp(3), pmErrStr(3) and PMAPI(3).

Performance Co-Pilot							PCP							       PMPRINTF(3)