GetRegexExclusionPairs takes a list of exclusion patterns and returns a slice of pairs of compiled regular expressions.

LabelMapToString converts a map of labels (key-value pairs) into a formatted string.

SanitizeKey replaces all invalid characters in the input string with underscores (_).

SanitizeMetricName replaces all invalid characters in input string with underscores.

SanitizeValue replaces all \,\n and " with underscores (_).

SplitArgsAtDash splits the args slice at the position of the dash ("--") in a cobra command.

VerifyPathFlag checks whether the given path (from a command-line flag) exists and whether it matches the expected type (directory or file) based on the expectDir flag.

TimeFormat defines a constant format for time-related strings, using underscores instead of colons in the time portion.