_R_R_D___P_D_P_C_A_L_C(1)                      rrdtool                     _R_R_D___P_D_P_C_A_L_C(1)

NNAAMMEE
       rrd_pdpcalc - PDP inner calculation logics with an example by Tianpeng
       Xia

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
       This article explains how PDP are calculated in a detailed yet easy-to-
       understand way, with an example.

RReeffrreesshhiinngg ssoommee bbaassiiccss aabboouutt PPDDPP
   FFuunnddaammeennttaall kknnoowwlleeddggee
       If you have not read the tutorials or man pages either on the official
       site or those by others, then I strongly encourage you to do so.  As
       said in the description, this article will only explain how a PDP is
       calculated, but not the definition of it.  So please read the following
       materials to get a basic understanding of PDP:

       <http://rrdtool.vandenbogaerdt.nl/process.php> - By Alex van den
       Bogaerdt. This article explained PDP in a very detailed and clear way,
       however, it does not explain the "normalization process" in its
       "Normalize interval" section in the right way( as opposed to the
       official version I confirmed with @oetiker himself). The flaw can be
       easily seen in the bar charts, discussed in the "Calculation logics"
       section.

       <https://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc/rrdcreate.en.html> - This one is on
       the official site. Actually it's the manual page for "rrdcreate", and
       it reveals what's under the hood with regard to PDP calculation in its
       "The HEARTBEAT and the STEP" section.

       The text graph by Don Baarda provides a vivid explanation on how
       UUNNKKNNOOWWNN data are produced and how heartbeat value can influence in the
       sampling. Unfortunately, it fails to give a clear method by which PDPs
       are calculated.

       <https://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/tut/rrdtutorial.en.html> - Another
       detailed official tutorial by Alex van den Bogaerdt. Similarly, it only
       provides examples with data evenly and exactly distributed according to
       the step set.

       If you don't like doing experiments or care about the inner mechanics
       that much, you can just stop here and give more attention to more
       practical topics like graph exports or command manual. But if you are
       the sort of people like me who just care as much about the calculation
       logics, please read on.

CCaallccuullaattiioonn llooggiiccss
       Here begins the core part of this article. In the following content of
       this section, I would like to give two versions of calculation methods,
       one by Alex van den Bogaerdt and the other by @eotiker.

       To provide an ASCII-friendly explanation, I will explain both versions
       with the char below instead of a real image.

         |
         |    (v1)
         | _______                        (v4)  (v5)
         | |     |           (v3)        ____________
         | |     |        ______________|     ||   |
         | |     |        |            ||     ||   |
         | |     |        |            ||     ||   |
         | |     |   (v2) |            ||     ||   |
         | |     |________|            ||     ||   |
        --------------------------------------------->
         0 1     3        7            17     20   21

       The X axis means time slots( each second denotes one slot) and the Y
       axis means the value.

       Let's make everything a little clearer:

       - The step is 5

       - each PDP gets updated only if a value arrives at or after the last
       slot of the PDP, for instance, the last slot of the PDP from 16 to 20
       is 20

       - The heartbeat is 20, so the samples during the entire 7-17 period is
       not discarded

       - At second 3, the first value comes in as v1, and so on

       - Second 0 is the origin, and it does not count as a sample

   BBooggaaeerrddtt vveerrssiioonn
       As can be seen on this page:
       <http://rrdtool.vandenbogaerdt.nl/process.php>, after all the primary
       data are transformed to rates( except for GAUGE, of course), they have
       to go through a nnoorrmmaalliizzaattiioonn pprroocceessss if they are not distributed
       exactly according to the step or on well-defined boundaries in time, in
       the words of the author.

       What does that mean? Basically, if all the kknnoowwnn (as opposed to an
       uunnkknnoowwnn value) data make up at least 50% of all slots during a period,
       then a PDP is calculated from them.

       This version seems to go well until we reach the bar chart part.

       According to the ASCII bar chart, we have the following results:

       From second 1 on, the PDP of each period( 1-5,6-10, ...) is computed by
       averaging all the values within it.

       So: - the PDP from 1 to 5 is (v1*3+v2*2)/5

       - the PDP from 6 to 10 is (v2*2+v3*3)/5

       - the PDP from 11 to 15 is (v3*5)/5, since all the values in slots 11,
       12, 13, 14 and 15 are the same, which is v3

       - ...

   TThhee ooffffiicciiaall vveerrssiioonn(( aallssoo @@ooeettiikkeerr vveerrssiioonn))::
       Using the same chart, this version suggests the following:

       - the PDP from 1 to 5 is (v1*3+v2*2)/5

       - the PDPs from 6 to 10 and 11 to 15 are the SSAAMMEE, which is (v2*2+v3*8)

       - ...

   AA CCoommppaarriissoonn aanndd ssoommee eexxppllaannaattiioonn
       So we have seen the above two versions and their PDPs from 6 to 10 and
       11 to 15 do not comply with each other.

       Why is that?

       Because the difference between the official version and Bogaerdt
       version stems from the way they do the calculation for PDP(6-10) and
       PDP(11-15).

       Let's discuss this in more detail using the above bar chart.

       _B_o_g_a_e_r_d_t_'_s _v_e_r_s_i_o_n_,

       PDPs are aallwwaayyss ccoommppuutteedd iinnddiivviidduuaallllyy no matter how values arrive.

       For example, the value at slot 17 comes after the last slot of
       PDP(11-15). Also, the immediate previous value before slot 17 is at 7.
       All the slots from 7 to 17 are assigned v3. Since each PDP is computed
       individually, PDP(6-10) is (v2*2+v3*3)/5 while the PDP(11-15) is
       (v3*5)/5.

       _T_h_e _o_f_f_i_c_i_a_l _v_e_r_s_i_o_n

       PDPs are aallwwaayyss ccoommppuutteedd iinn tteerrmmss ooff tthhee sstteeppss wwhhiicchh tthhee nneexxtt uuppddaattee
       ssppaannss, be it 1 step, 2 steps or n steps; in other words, PDPs may be
       computed ttooggeetthheerr.

       For example, the update at slot 17 spans PDP(6-10) and PDP(11-15)
       because the iimmmmeeddiiaattee previous value is at 7 and 7 is within 6 and 10 ,
       and 17 is after 15. PDP(1-5) and PDP(16-20) are not included since the
       update at slot 7 has already triggered the calculation for PDP(1-5) and
       the update at slot 17 comes before the last slot of PDP(16-20) which is
       20.

       That's the reason why PDP(6-10) and PDP(11-15) have the same value,
       (v2*2+v3*8).

AAnn eexxaammppllee
       If you are still confused, don't worry, an example is here to help you.

       Let's get our hands dirty with some commands

        rrdtool create target.rrd --start 1000000000  --step 5 DS:mem:GAUGE:20:0:100 RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:10
        rrdtool update target.rrd 1000000003:8 1000000006:1 1000000017:6 \
        1000000020:7 1000000021:7 1000000022:4 \
        1000000023:3 1000000036:1 1000000037:2 \
        1000000038:3 1000000039:3 1000000042:5
        rrdtool fetch target.rrd AVERAGE --start 1000000000 --end 1000000045

       Basically, the above codes contain 3 commands: create, update and
       fetch. First create a new rrd file, and then we feed in some data and
       last we fetch all the PDPs from the rrd.

   FFooccuuss oonn ssiinnggllee sstteeppss
       In order to provide a detailed explanation, each the calculation
       process of each PDP is provided.

       Below is the output of the commands above:

        1000000005: 5.2000000000e+00
        1000000010: 5.5000000000e+00
        1000000015: 5.5000000000e+00
        1000000020: 6.6000000000e+00
        1000000025: 1.7333333333e+00
        1000000030: 1.7333333333e+00
        1000000035: 1.7333333333e+00
        1000000040: 2.8000000000e+00
        1000000045: nan
        1000000050: nan

       NOTE: 1000000005 means the PDP from 1000000001 to 1000000005, and so
       on. For concision and readability, we use only the last two digits, so
       05 denotes 1000000005. We choose the type of the data source as gauge
       because original values will be treated as rates, no additional
       transformation is needed, see this article
       <http://rrdtool.vandenbogaerdt.nl/process.php> for detail.

       05: 5.2 = (8*3+1*2)/5

       10: 5.5 = (1*1+6*9)/10

       15: the same as the previous one

       20: 6.6 = (6*2+7*3)/5

       25: 1.73333 = (7+4+3+1*12)/15

       ...

       45: nan, as the last value is at 42,which does not trigger the
       calculation for PDP(41-45)

       50: nan, why this unknown PDP is shown is explained in this article
       <https://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/tut/rrdtutorial.en.html>

SSUUMMMMAARRYY
       All that said, I hope you get a clear understanding of the inner
       calculation "magic" for PDPs.

   OOtthheerr RReeffeerreenncceess
       •   A  great  PowerShell  shell script for generating ASCII bar charts:
           <https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Sample-Script-to-Generate-59c80d4c>

       •   <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18924450/rrd-wrong-values>

1.10.0                            2026-05-19                    _R_R_D___P_D_P_C_A_L_C(1)
