One script for many data items

I'm polling iptables every 5 minutes to collect usage data for many rules. 
(For example, one input and one output rule in the FORWARD table for each 
DHCP client to get that client's traffic.) I'd prefer to not run a separate 
iptables query for each rule, as that's at least 4 processes per client 
(one for iptables binary and one for the wrapper parsing script, times 2 
for each direction). I'd prefer to run iptables-save once to collect the 
kernel data for all the counters at once. What's the correct way to 
organize that? How would I have the poller make one script call and then 
point many data sources at the result?

Here's the setup I'm using now, with one script execution per iptables 
counter.

<http://sewingwitch.com/ken/Stuff/cacti-iptables/>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Got visibility?
Most devs has no idea what their production app looks like.
Find out how fast your code is with AppDynamics Lite.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;262219671;13503038;y?
http://info.appdynamics.com/FreeJavaPerformanceDownload.html