A dynamic status tree facility for providing status information about one
or more systems. The facility includes a tree data structure and methods
for manipulating the data structure. The facility is accessible to
provider processes using a set of provider interface methods. The
facility is accessible to consumer processes using a set of consumer
interface methods. The tree data structure is defined by nodes stored in
shared memory and attached to by way of a defined data structure made
available to the provider and consumer interface methods. The nodes in
the tree data structure are defined to have a control block and a
variable set of export data. The export data for any one node is
specified by a variable in the control block. Certain of the exported
data in the tree is representable in a format selected to have one of
four defined properties. A set of tags are defined for the identification
of nodes and export information in the tree data structure.