Submit a Request to the Junos XML Protocol Server in Perl Client Applications

Many Perl methods have one or more options or attributes. The following list describes the notation used to define a method’s options in the lib/JUNOS/Methods.pm and lib/JUNOS/release/package_methods.pl files, and the notation that an application uses when invoking the method:

• A method without options is defined as $NO_ARGS, as in the following entry for the get_system_uptime_information method:

  To invoke a method without options, follow the method name with an empty set of parentheses as in the following example:

• A fixed-form option is defined as type $TOGGLE. In the following example, the get_software_information method takes two fixed-form options, brief and detail:

  To include a fixed-form option when invoking a method, set it to the value 1 (one) as in the following example:

• An option with a variable value is defined as type $STRING. In the following example, the get_cos_drop_profile_information method takes the profile_name argument:

  To include a variable value when invoking a method, enclose the value in single quotes as in the following example:

• An attribute is defined as type $ATTRIBUTE. In the following example, the load_configuration method takes the rollback attribute:

  To include a numerical attribute value when invoking a method, set it to the appropriate value. The following example rolls the candidate configuration back to the previous configuration that has an index of 2:

  To include a string attribute value when invoking a method, enclose the value in single quotes as in the following example:

• A set of configuration statements or corresponding tag elements is defined as type $DOM. In the following example, the get_configuration method takes a set of configuration statements (along with two attributes):

  To include a set of configuration statements when invoking a method, provide a parsed set of statements or tag elements. The following example refers to a set of Junos XML configuration tag elements in the config-input.xml file. For a more detailed discussion about modifying the configuration, see Example: Changing the Configuration Using Junos XML Protocol Perl Client Applications.

A method can have a combination of fixed-form options, options with variable values, attributes, and a set of configuration statements. For example, the get_forwarding_table_information method has four fixed-form options and five options with variable values:

The following code is the recommended way to send a request to the Junos XML protocol server and shows how to handle error conditions. The $jnx variable is defined to be a JUNOS::Device object, as discussed in Connecting to the Junos XML Protocol Server Using Perl Client Applications. A detailed discussion of the functional subsections follows the complete code sample.

The first subsection of the preceding code sample creates a hash called %arguments to define values for a method’s options or attributes. For each argument, the application uses the notation described in Providing Method Options or Attributes.

The application then invokes the method, defining the $res variable to point to the JUNOS::Response object that the Junos XML protocol server returns in response to the request (the object is defined in the lib/JUNOS/Response.pm file in the Junos XML protocol Perl distribution):

If the attempt to send the request failed, the application prints an error message and closes the connection:

If there was an error in the Junos XML protocol server’s response, the application prints an error message and closes the connection. The getFirstError function is defined in the JUNOS::Response module (lib/JUNOS/Response.pm) in the Junos XML protocol Perl distribution.