confused by labels, names, values

[stefangweichinger]

Forgive me asking newbie questions maybe, I am new to this json handling thing and trying to learn things right.

I use json_exporter successfully for extracting values from various appliances at a customer already.

Right now I try to

 # cat inst.json 

{
  "INST_VALUES": {
    "LOCAL_TIME": "2024-07-25T16:51:01+01:00",
    "V_L1": {
      "value": 229.906,
      "unit": "V"
    },
    "V_L2": {
      "value": 231.950,
      "unit": "V"
    },
    "V_L3": {
      "value": 231.341,
      "unit": "V"
    },
    "V_L12": {
      "value": 398.990,
      "unit": "V"
    },
    "V_L23": {
      "value": 401.072,
      "unit": "V"
    },

[..]

At first I tried something like:

  siemens_pac_inst:
    headers:
      X-Dummy: my-siemenspac-header3
    metrics:
    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        V_L1: '{.V_L1}'
        V_L2: '{.V_L2}'
        V_L3: '{.V_L3}'
        V_L12: '{.V_L12}'
        V_L23: '{.V_L23}'

[..]

but I assume it should be more like

    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.V_L1 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        V_L1: '{.value}'

I also assume there is an elegant way of iterating over all these values ... but I could need some example and help for doing so.

If possible: is there an explanation for when to use labels and names?
I have modules in place and get metrics but I think my naming might be sub-optimal ...

thanks in advance!

[stefangweichinger]

I get good metrics with something like:

   - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.V_L1 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        v_l1: '{.value}'
    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.V_L2 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        v_l2: '{.value}'
    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.V_L3 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        v_l3: '{.value}'
    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.P_L1 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        p_l1: '{.value}'
    - name: inst_values
      type: object
      path: '{ .INST_VALUES.P_L2 }'
      help: somehelp
      values:
        p_l2: '{.value}'

etc

Is there a shorter way to do that? thanks!