What were you trying to do that didn't work?

Exporting metrics using pcp2openmetrics tools generates invalid openmetrics format

Please provide the package NVR for which bug is seen:

pcp-6.2.2-1.el9

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to reproduce

1. Start pmcd and pmlogger

    # systemctl restart pmcd pmlogger
   

1. Run the following command

    #  pcp2openmetrics -a $(ls -1 /var/log/pcp/pmlogger/$(hostname)/*.0 | tail -n 1) -s 1 -F /tmp/x 'hinv.ncpu'
   

1.  Check the output in /tmp/x file

    #  cat /tmp/x
   

Expected results

The /tmp/x file contains data in valid openmetrics format, which can be directly consumed by i.e. pcp-pmda-openmetrics

Actual results

# cat /tmp/x

Metric hinv.ncpu details (last fetch: 1716990636)
:# PCP5 hinv_ncpu 60.0.32 u32 PM_INDOM_NULL discrete 
# HELP hinv_ncpu number of CPUs in the system
# TYPE hinv_ncpu gauge
hinv_ncpu{domainname="localdomain",groupid="993",hostname="vm-10-0-186-57.hosted.upshift.rdu2.redhat.com",machineid="03640ff5862a45f5b2944e3ded241caa",userid="993",agent="linux"} 1 1716990636.2064

Major issues in the openmetrics file are the following:

1. It contains a comment "Metric hinv.ncpu details (last fetch: 1716990636)" which is considered by pcp-pmda-openmetrics as a definition of a new metric.
2. There is colon at the beginning of the line ":# PCP5 hinv_ncpu 60.0.32 u32 PM_INDOM_NULL discrete" - this makes i.e. the pcp-pmda-openmetrics fail to parse the file.