Custom statistics from distributed agents

Thanks for the reply. As it turns out, I did end up getting this to work correctly, though now I am unsure what I did

As requested, here is the code for the component:

/**
 * 
 * @name Custom Statistics
 * @category analysis
 * @id com.example.CustomStatistics
 */
 
//Properties
createProperty('stats', String, '')

customStats = [:]

createStats = {

    if(customStats) {
         for(stat in customStats) {
             log.info("Removing stat " + stat.key)
             removeStatisticVariable(stat.key)
         }   
         customStats = [:]
    }

    if(!stats.value) {
        return [:]
    }
    
    log.debug("Parsing stats String $stats.value")
    splitStats = stats.value.split(' *, *')
    log.debug("Split stats=$splitStats")
    
    ret = [:]
    for(stat in splitStats) {
         splitStat = stat.split(':')
         def statName = splitStat[0]
         def statType = 'SAMPLE'
         if(splitStat.length > 1) {
             statType = splitStat[1]
         }
            
         log.info("Adding new stats variable '$statName' of type '$statType'")   
         newStat = addStatisticVariable(statName, statType)  
         ret[statName] = newStat
    }
    
    customStats = ret
}

analyze = { message ->
    now = System.currentTimeMillis()
    try {
        if(message instanceof Map) {
            if(message['stats'] instanceof Map) {
                theseStats = message['stats']
                for(customStatEntry in customStats) {
                    
                    statName = customStatEntry.key
                    stat = customStatEntry.value
                    
                    statValue = theseStats[statName]?.value
                    
                    if(statValue) {
                        try {
                            //log.info("Updating stat $statName: $statValue")
                            if(statValue instanceof Number) {
                                stat.update(now, statValue)
                            }
                            else if(statValue instanceof String) {
                                stat.update(now, Long.parseLong(statValue))    
                            }
                            else {
                                log.error("value for stat '$statName' is not a Number or String! : $statValue")
                            }
                        } catch(NumberFormatException ignored) {
                            log.error("Unable to parse value for stat '$statName'", e)
                        }
                    }
                    else {
                        log.error("No value for stat '$statName'")
                    }
                }                
            }    
        }
    }
    catch(Exception e) {
        log.error('analyze', e)
    }
}

collectStatisticsData = {
    log.debug("In collectStatisticsData")
}

handleStatisticsData = { statisticsData ->
    log.debug("handleStatisticsData: $statisticsData")
}

onAction("RESET") {
    createStats()
}

layout {
    box( layout: 'wrap 2, ins 0' ) {
        property( property: stats, label: 'Expected Statistics', constraints: 'growx, spanx 2' )
    }
}

createStats()
onReplace(stats, createStats)

Basically, you input a comma-delimited set of expected stat names (and optionally type) and the component registers a new statistic variable with that name and type. Then, it expects that the message passed in contains a key called 'stats' whose value is another map where the keys are stat names and the values are the numeric values to pass to the stat.update() method. I hope that makes sense.

Like I said, this was kind of quick and dirty component and there are definitely some improvements that could be made, but it seems to get the job done!

By the way, since I have you on the line, I was wondering if there was any way to clear the System Log and/or set the number of log entries that are kept? Since I've been dabbling in writing custom components, once in a while I'll see a stack trace get generated, but I can't get to it before it is pushed off the log by newer entries.

Thanks again!