[hobbit] Server-side extension scripts: shell vs. C programming

[Hubbard, Greg L]

Before embarking on this, you might want to write a wrapper that runs
your real script with a "time" command and then log the results.  The
reason for rewriting in C is to make it more efficient, but if what you
are doing is not very bad, there is no reason for the heartache unless
you need to learn C, or are into self-abuse.
 
And you can probably modify the Hobbit RRD module (realizing that you
will have to maintain it forever) to add your additional test parsing to
what is already provided.
 
You also might consider converting your shell script into a Perl script
-- Perl is a good intermediate between shell and C, and is pretty fast
for longer running tasks.  The only reason Perl doesn't win for all
tasks is the need to compile the script before running it -- a slight
performance hit for repetitive short tasks.
 
GLH


________________________________

	From: Gary Baluha [mailto:gumby3203 at gmail.com] 
	Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 1:13 PM
	To: hobbit at hswn.dk
	Subject: [hobbit] Server-side extension scripts: shell vs. C
programming
	
	
	I remember reading somewhere in the Hobbit documentation that
when an extension script starts to do a lot of things, it should be
coded in a compiled language such as C, instead of as a shell script.  I
have a custom script that takes a lot of data and converts it into NCV
graphs, and I believe it is at the point where I should consider
rewriting it in C. 
	
	Before I get to far into it, is the hobbitd_sample.c something
that I should look at for this?  I'm not sure if I'm reading the
documentation on it correctly, if it is a good example for an external
script.  Has anyone else had experience in needing to convert a shell
script to C/C++/etc for Hobbit?  I'm just trying to get a rough idea of
how much effort this will require. 
	

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