Merge branch 'collectd-4.9' into collectd-4.10

[collectd.git] / src / collectd-python.pod

diff --git a/src/collectd-python.pod b/src/collectd-python.pod
index 335f6a9..267296c 100644 (file)
--- a/src/collectd-python.pod
+++ b/src/collectd-python.pod
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
+# copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
+# to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
+# the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
+# and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
+# Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+#
+# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
+# all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
 =head1 NAME
 
 collectd-python - Documentation of collectd's C<python plugin>
@@ -105,6 +115,15 @@ environment variable, e.g. I<export PAGER=less> before starting collectd.
 Depending on your version of python this might or might not result in an
 B<OSError> exception which can be ignored.
 
+If you really need to spawn new processes from python you can register an init
+callback and reset the action for SIGCHLD to the default behavior. Please note
+that this I<will> break the exec plugin. Do not even load the exec plugin if
+you intend to do this!
+
+There is an example script located in B<contrib/python/getsigchld.py>  to do
+this. If you import this from I<collectd.conf> SIGCHLD will be handled
+normally and spawning processes from python will work as intended.
+
 =back
 
 =item E<lt>B<Module> I<Name>E<gt> block
@@ -231,6 +250,28 @@ collectd you're done.
 The following complex types are used to pass values between the Python plugin
 and collectd:
 
+=head2 Signed
+
+The Signed class is just a long. It has all its methods and behaves exactly
+like any other long object. It is used to indicate if an integer was or should
+be stored as a signed or unsigned integer object.
+
+ class Signed(long)
+
+This is a long by another name. Use it in meta data dicts
+to choose the way it is stored in the meta data.
+
+=head2 Unsigned
+
+The Unsigned class is just a long. It has all its methods and behaves exactly
+like any other long object. It is used to indicate if an integer was or should
+be stored as a signed or unsigned integer object.
+
+ class Unsigned(long)
+
+This is a long by another name. Use it in meta data dicts
+to choose the way it is stored in the meta data.
+
 =head2 Config
 
 The Config class is an object which keeps the information provided in the
@@ -394,6 +435,16 @@ If the sequence does not have the correct size upon dispatch a I<RuntimeError>
 exception will be raised. If the content of the sequence is not a number, a
 I<TypeError> exception will be raised.
 
+=item meta
+
+These are the meta data for this Value object.
+It has to be a dictionary of numbers, strings or bools. All keys must be
+strings. I<int> and <long> objects will be dispatched as signed integers unless
+they are between 2**63 and 2**64-1, which will result in a unsigned integer.
+You can force one of these storage classes by using the classes
+B<collectd.Signed> and B<collectd.Unsigned>. A meta object received by a write
+callback will always contain B<Signed> or B<Unsigned> objects.
+
 =back
 
 =head2 Notification
@@ -652,14 +703,8 @@ dispatched by the python plugin after upgrades.
 
 =item
 
-This plugin is not compatible with python3. Trying to compile it with python3
-will fail because of the ways string, unicode and bytearray behavior was
-changed.
-
-=item
-
 Not all aspects of the collectd API are accessible from python. This includes
-but is not limited to meta-data, filters and data sets.
+but is not limited to filters and data sets.
 
 =back