NewRelic (New Relic Elixir Agent v1.23.5) View Source

New Relic Agent - Public API

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Functions

Report custom attributes on the current Transaction

See NewRelic.DistributedTrace.distributed_trace_headers/1.

You must manually instrument outgoing HTTP calls to connect them to a Distributed Trace.

Call within a transaction to prevent it from reporting.

Increment a Custom metric.

Define an "Other" transaction within the given block. The return value of the block is returned.

Report a Custom event to NRDB.

Report a Custom metric.

To get detailed information about a particular process, you can install a Process sampler. You must tell the Agent about your process from within the process.

Store information about the type of work the current span is doing.

Set the name of the current transaction.

Start an "Other" Transaction.

Stop an "Other" Transaction.

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add_attributes(custom_attributes)

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Report custom attributes on the current Transaction

Reporting nested data structures is supported by auto-flattening them into a list of key-value pairs.

NewRelic.add_attributes(foo: "bar")
  # "foo" => "bar"

NewRelic.add_attributes(map: %{foo: "bar", baz: "qux"})
  # "map.foo" => "bar"
  # "map.baz" => "qux"
  # "map.size" => 2

NewRelic.add_attributes(list: ["a", "b", "c"])
  # "list.0" => "a"
  # "list.1" => "b"
  # "list.2" => "c"
  # "list.length" => 3

Notes:

  • Nested Lists and Maps are truncated at 10 items since there are a limited number of attributes that can be reported on Transaction events
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create_distributed_trace_payload(type)

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This function is deprecated. Use distributed_trace_headers/1 instead.

See NewRelic.DistributedTrace.distributed_trace_headers/1.

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distributed_trace_headers(type)

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You must manually instrument outgoing HTTP calls to connect them to a Distributed Trace.

The agent will automatically read request headers and detect if the request is a part of a Distributed Trace, but outgoing requests need an extra header:

HTTPoison.get(url, ["x-api-key": "secret"] ++ NewRelic.distributed_trace_headers(:http))

Notes:

  • Call NewRelic.distributed_trace_headers immediately before making the request since calling the function marks the "start" time of the request.

Call within a transaction to prevent it from reporting.

def index(conn, _) do
  NewRelic.ignore_transaction()
  send_resp(conn, 200, "Health check OK")
end
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increment_custom_metric(name, count \\ 1)

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Increment a Custom metric.

NewRelic.increment_custom_metric("My/Metric")
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other_transaction(category, name, list)

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Define an "Other" transaction within the given block. The return value of the block is returned.

See start_transaction and stop_transaction for more details.

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report_custom_event(type, attributes)

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Report a Custom event to NRDB.

NewRelic.report_custom_event("EventType", %{"foo" => "bar"})
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report_custom_metric(name, value)

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Report a Custom metric.

NewRelic.report_custom_metric("My/Metric", 123)

To get detailed information about a particular process, you can install a Process sampler. You must tell the Agent about your process from within the process.

For a GenServer, this function call should be made in the init function:

defmodule ImportantProcess do
  use GenServer
  def init(:ok) do
    NewRelic.sample_process
    {:ok, %{}}
  end
end

Once installed, the agent will report ElixirSample events with:

  • category = "Process"
  • message_queue_length
  • reductions
  • memory_kb
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set_span(type, attributes)

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Store information about the type of work the current span is doing.

Options:

  • :generic, custom: attributes
  • :http, url: url, method: method, component: component
  • :datastore, statement: statement, instance: instance, address: address, hostname: hostname, component: component
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set_transaction_name(name)

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Set the name of the current transaction.

The first segment will be treated as the Transaction namespace, and commonly contains the name of the framework.

Notes:

  • At least 2 segments are required to light up the Transactions UI in APM

In the following example, you will see /custom/transaction/name in the Transaction list.

NewRelic.set_transaction_name("/Plug/custom/transaction/name")
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start_transaction(category, name)

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Specs

start_transaction(String.t(), String.t()) :: :ok

Start an "Other" Transaction.

This will begin monitoring the current process as an "Other" Transaction (ie: Not a "Web" Transaction). The first argument will be considered the "category", the second is the "name".

Examples:

NewRelic.start_transaction("GenStage", "MyConsumer/EventType")
NewRelic.start_transaction("Task", "TaskName")

Notes:

  • Don't use this to track Web Transactions - for that, use NewRelic.Transaction in your Plug pipeline so that we can properly categorize as Web Transactions in the UI.
  • Do not use this for processes that live a very long time, doing so will risk a memory leak tracking attributes in the transaction!
  • You can't start a new transaction within an existing one. Any process spawned inside a transaction belongs to that transaction.
  • If multiple transactions are started in the same Process, you must call NewRelic.stop_transaction() to mark the end of the transaction.

Specs

stop_transaction() :: :ok

Stop an "Other" Transaction.

If multiple transactions are started in the same Process, you must call NewRelic.stop_transaction() to mark the end of the transaction.