centos man page for pmgetchildren

PMGETCHILDREN(3)					     Library Functions Manual						  PMGETCHILDREN(3)

NAME
       pmGetChildren - return the descendent nodes of a PMNS node

C SYNOPSIS
       #include <pcp/pmapi.h>

       int pmGetChildren(const char *name, char ***offspring);

       cc ... -lpcp

DESCRIPTION
       Given  a  fully	qualified  pathname  to  a node in the current Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS), as identified by name, pmGetChildren
       returns via offspring a list of the relative names of all of the immediate descendent nodes of name in the current PMNS.

       As a special case, if name is an empty string (i.e.""), the immediate descendants of the root node in the PMNS will be returned.

       Normally, pmGetChildren will return the number of descendent names discovered, else a value less than zero for an error.   The  value  zero
       indicates that name is a valid metric name, i.e. is associated with a leaf node in the PMNS.

       The  resulting  list  of  pointers  offspring  and  the values (the relative names) that the pointers reference will have been allocated by
       pmGetChildren with a single call to malloc(3C), and it is the responsibility of the pmGetChildren caller to free(offspring) to release  the
       space when it is no longer required.

       When  an  error	occurs,  or name is a leaf node (i.e. the result of pmGetChildren is less than one), offspring is undefined (no space will
       have been allocated, and so calling free(3C) is a singularly bad idea).

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 configura-
       tion file, as described in pcp.conf(5).	Values for these variables may be obtained programmatically using the pmGetConfig(3) function.

SEE ALSO
       PMAPI(3), pmGetChildrenStatus(3), pmGetConfig(3), pmLoadASCIINameSpace(3), pmLoadNameSpace(3), pmLookupName(3),	pmNameID(3),  pcp.conf(5),
       pcp.env(5) and pmns(5).

DIAGNOSTICS
       PM_ERR_NOPMNS
	      Failed  to access a PMNS for operation.  Note that if the application hasn't a priori called pmLoadNameSpace(3) and wants to use the
	      distributed PMNS, then a call to pmGetChildren must be made inside a current context.

       PM_ERR_NAME
	      The pathname name is not valid in the current PMNS

       PM_ERR_*
	      Other diagnostics are for protocol failures when accessing the distributed PMNS.

Performance Co-Pilot							PCP							  PMGETCHILDREN(3)