Information on plugin output format

git-svn-id: https://nagiosplug.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/nagiosplug/nagiosplug/trunk@843 f882894a-f735-0410-b71e-b25c423dba1c

diff --git a/doc/developer-guidelines.sgml b/doc/developer-guidelines.sgml
index 951f167b10c62bb36fd82e14a30c7089743c6fc2..718bd02a887b9a31c0dbdc88a763c60450d3f963 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/developer-guidelines.sgml
+++ b/doc/developer-guidelines.sgml
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@
 <section id="PlugOutput"><title>Plugin Output for Nagios</title>
        
                <para>You should always print something to STDOUT that tells if the 
-               service is working or why its failing. Try to keep the output short - 
+               service is working or why it is failing. Try to keep the output short - 
                probably less that 80 characters. Remember that you ideally would like 
                the entire output to appear in a pager message, which will get chopped
                off after a certain length.</para>
@@ -124,6 +124,14 @@
                when it notifies contacts about potential problems. If you print
                multiple lines, you're out of luck. Remember, keep it short and
                to the point.</para>
+
+               <para>Output should be in the format:</para>
+               <literallayout>
+               METRIC STATUS: Information text
+               </literallayout>
+               <para>However, note that this is not a requirement of the API, so you cannot depend on this
+               being an accurate reflection of the status of the service - the status should always 
+               be determined by the return code.</para>
                </section>
 
                <section><title>Verbose output</title>