Perfstat API programming

The perfstat application programming interface (API) is a collection of C programming language subroutines that is used in user space. It uses the perfstat kernel extension to extract various AIX® performance metrics.

System component information is also retrieved from the Object Data Manager (ODM) and returned with the performance metrics.

The perfstat API is thread–safe, and does not require root authority.

The API supports extensions so binary compatibility is maintained across all releases of.AIX This interface is accomplished by using one of the parameters in all the API calls to specify the size of the data structure to be returned. The interface permits the library to determine the version is use, using the structures that are growing. It helps the user from being dependent on the different versions. For the list of extensions in earlier versions of,AIX see the Change History section.

The perfstat API subroutines are present in the libperfstat.a library that are part of the bos.perf.libperfstat file set, which is installable from the AIX base installation media and requires that the bos.perf.perfstat file set is installed. The latter contains the kernel extension and is automatically installed with.AIX

The /usr/include/libperfstat.h file contains the interface declarations and type definitions of the data structures to use when calling the interfaces. The include file is also part of the bos.perf.libperfstat file set. Sample source code is provided with bos.perf.libperfstat file set and is present in the /usr/samples/libperfstat directory.