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# 9.1 Hints for EMC users

Click on the graph with the left mouse button to bring up the "key".

The horizontal scale is indicated with the little black tick marks. The distance between ticks is approximately 1 second.

The vertical scale is different for each variable. The top is the value that variable would have to have to be plotted at the top of the scale, the bottom is the value the variable would have to have to be plotted at the bottom. Initially the top and bottom equal the maximum and minimum from the configuration file, however if the maximum or minimum are exceeded the scale will change to keep the plot in the visible part of the graph.

The file emcstrip.conf.ferror configures emstripchart to plot the following errors and high marks for the following errors.

The normal build will skip this utility, to build it cd emc/src/stripchart and run "make".

To make generic.run or ?.run start it every time you start EMC, base your run script on a version of generic.run that is newer than April 1, 2000 and add the following section to your .ini:

`; section for emc stripchart parameters -----------------`
`[EMCSTRIP]`
`; Name of strip chart display program e.g. emcstripchart`
`; if not found then none will run`
`EMCSTRIP = emcstripchart`
`; OPTIONS for emcstripchart usually -f something.conf`
`; This file says which`
`; variables to plot, colors etc. -u changes the update rate.`
`OPTIONS = -f emcstrip.conf.position`

Licensing: Most of EMC was written at NIST and is public domain. However, Stripchart is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

GNOME Stripchart Documentation The GNOME stripchart program charts various user-specified parameters as a function of time. Its main use is to chart system performance parameters such as CPU load, CPU utilization, network traffic levels, and the like. Other more ingenious uses are left as an exercise for the interested user.

The gstripchart program periodically reads data from a file, extracts a value, and displays these values in one of several formats. The default format is a graphical display similar to that of a stripchart recorder. Hence the name, "gstripchart".

On systems such as Linux, in which the system parameters are available in human-readable form in the /proc directory, the gstripchart program makes a dandy performance monitoring tool, similar to but more versatile than xload.

Instead of being limited to a few standard performance parameters, the gstripchart program can plot any time-variant parameter than can be read from a file or pipe. This ability to read data from a pipe provides a very versatile and easy to use method of setting up custom displays.

The gstripchart program determines the parameters to display by reading a configuration file. The gstripchart program will first look for a configuration file specified on the command line, then look for a file named gstripchart.conf in the current directory, then look for a file named .gstripchart.conf in the users home directory, then look for a file named /etc/gstripchart.conf. If no configuration file is found, the program is terminated.

Options There are a few command line switches that can be used to alter the behavior of the program.

`-f, -config-file=FILE configuration file`
`-g, -geometry=GEOMETRY geometry`
`-i, -chart-interval=SECS chart update interval`
`-I, -chart-filter=SECS chart low-pass filter time constant`
`-j, -slider-interval=SECS slider update interval`
`-J, -slider-filter=SECS slider low-pass filter time constant`
`-M, -menubar add menubar`
`-S, -omit-slider omit slider`
`-t, -display-type=TYPE type of display`
`none: no display is produced (for debugging);`
`text: a textual numeric display is produced;`
`graph: a textual graphic display is produced;`
`gtk: use the default gtk-based graphic display.`
`-class=CLASS FIXME`
`-display=DISPLAY X display to use`
`-gxid_host=HOST FIXME`
`-gxid_port=PORT FIXME`
`-name=NAME FIXME`
`-no-xshm Don't use X shared memory extension`
`-xim-preedit=STYLE FIXME`
`-xim-status=STYLE FIXME`
`-u, -update-interval=SECS update interval to poll data`
`-?, -help Give this help list`
`-usage Give a short usage message`
`-V, -version Print program version`

Next: 9.2 configuration file Up: 9. Using the Strip Previous: 9. Using the Strip Contents Index