Using the Perl Interface to libexacct

How to Recursively Print the Contents of an exacct Object

Use the following code to recursively print the contents of an exacct object. Note that this capability is provided by the library as the Sun::Solaris::Exacct::Object::dump() function. This capability is also available through the ea_dump_object() convenience function.

sub dump_object
     {
             my ($obj, $indent) = @_;
             my $istr = '  ' x $indent;

             #
             # Retrieve the catalog tag.  Because we are 
             # doing this in an array context, the
             # catalog tag will be returned as a (type, catalog, id) 
             # triplet, where each member of the triplet will behave as 
             # an integer or a string, depending on context.
             # If instead this next line provided a scalar context, e.g.
             #    my $cat  = $obj->catalog()->value();
             # then $cat would be set to the integer value of the 
             # catalog tag.
             #
             my @cat = $obj->catalog()->value();

             #
             # If the object is a plain item
             #
             if ($obj->type() == &EO_ITEM) {
                     #
                     # Note: The '%s' formats provide s string context, so
                     # the components of the catalog tag will be displayed
                     # as the symbolic values. If we changed the '%s'
                     # formats to '%d', the numeric value of the components
                     # would be displayed.
                     #
                     printf("%sITEM\n%s  Catalog = %s|%s|%s\n", 
                        $istr, $istr, @cat);
                     $indent++;

                     #
                     # Retrieve the value of the item.  If the item contains
                     # in turn a nested exacct object (i.e., an item or
                     # group),then the value method will return a reference
                     # to the appropriate sort of perl object
                     # (Exacct::Object::Item or Exacct::Object::Group).
                     # We could of course figure out that the item contained
                     # a nested item orgroup by examining the catalog tag in
                     # @cat and looking for a type of EXT_EXACCT_OBJECT or
                     # EXT_GROUP.
                     #
                     my $val = $obj->value();
                     if (ref($val)) {
                             # If it is a nested object, recurse to dump it.
                             dump_object($val, $indent);
                     } else {
                             # Otherwise it is just a 'plain' value, so
                             # display it.
                             printf("%s  Value = %s\n", $istr, $val);
                     }

             #
             # Otherwise we know we are dealing with a group.  Groups
             # represent contents as a perl list or array (depending on
             # context), so we can process the contents of the group
             # with a 'foreach' loop, which provides a list context.
             # In a list context the value method returns the content
             # of the group as a perl list, which is the quickest
             # mechanism, but doesn't allow the group to be modified.
             # If we wanted to modify the contents of the group we could
             # do so like this:
             #    my $grp = $obj->value();   # Returns an array reference
             #    $grp->[0] = $newitem;
             # but accessing the group elements this way is much slower.
             #
             } else {
                     printf("%sGROUP\n%s  Catalog = %s|%s|%s\n",
                         $istr, $istr, @cat);
                     $indent++;
                     # 'foreach' provides a list context.
                     foreach my $val ($obj->value()) {
                             dump_object($val, $indent);
                     }
                     printf("%sENDGROUP\n", $istr);
             }
     }

How to Create a New Group Record and Write It to a File

Use this script to create a new group record and write it to a file named /tmp/exacct.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Sun::Solaris::Exacct qw(:EXACCT_ALL);
# Prototype list of catalog tags and values.
     my @items = (
             [ &EXT_STRING | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_CREATOR      => "me"       ],
             [ &EXT_UINT32 | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_PROC_PID     => $$         ],
             [ &EXT_UINT32 | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_PROC_UID     => $<         ],
             [ &EXT_UINT32 | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_PROC_GID     => $(         ],
             [ &EXT_STRING | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_PROC_COMMAND => "/bin/rec" ],
     );

     # Create a new group catalog object.
     my $cat = ea_new_catalog(&EXT_GROUP | &EXC_DEFAULT | &EXD_NONE)

     # Create a new Group object and retrieve its data array.
     my $group = ea_new_group($cat);
     my $ary = $group->value();

     # Push the new Items onto the Group array.
     foreach my $v (@items) {
             push(@$ary, ea_new_item(ea_new_catalog($v->[0]), $v->[1]));
     }

     # Open the exacct file, write the record & close.
     my $f = ea_new_file('/tmp/exacct', &O_RDWR | &O_CREAT | &O_TRUNC)
        || die("create /tmp/exacct failed: ", ea_error_str(), "\n");
     $f->write($group);
     $f = undef;

How to Print the Contents of an exacct File

Use the following Perl script to print the contents of an exacct file.

#!/usr/bin/perl

     use strict;
     use warnings;
     use Sun::Solaris::Exacct qw(:EXACCT_ALL);

     die("Usage is dumpexacct <exacct file>\n") unless (@ARGV == 1);

     # Open the exact file and display the header information.
     my $ef = ea_new_file($ARGV[0], &O_RDONLY) || die(error_str());
     printf("Creator:  %s\n", $ef->creator());
     printf("Hostname: %s\n\n", $ef->hostname());

     # Dump the file contents
     while (my $obj = $ef->get()) {
             ea_dump_object($obj);
     }

     # Report any errors
     if (ea_error() != EXR_OK && ea_error() != EXR_EOF)  {
             printf("\nERROR: %s\n", ea_error_str());
             exit(1);
     }
     exit(0);

Example Output From Sun::Solaris::Exacct::Object->dump()

Here is example output produced by running Sun::Solaris::Exacct::Object->dump() on the file created in How to Create a New Group Record and Write It to a File.

Creator:  root
Hostname: localhost
GROUP
       Catalog = EXT_GROUP|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_NONE
       ITEM
         Catalog = EXT_STRING|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_CREATOR
         Value = me
       ITEM
         Catalog = EXT_UINT32|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_PROC_PID
         Value = 845523
       ITEM
         Catalog = EXT_UINT32|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_PROC_UID
         Value = 37845
       ITEM
         Catalog = EXT_UINT32|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_PROC_GID
         Value = 10
       ITEM
         Catalog = EXT_STRING|EXC_DEFAULT|EXD_PROC_COMMAND
         Value = /bin/rec
ENDGROUP