Net::Remctl::Backend

(Helper infrastructure for remctl backend programs)

SYNOPSIS

    use Net::Remctl::Backend;

    my %commands = (
        cmd1 => { code => \&run_cmd1 },
        cmd2 => { code => \&run_cmd2 },
    );
    my $backend = Net::Remctl::Backend->new({
        commands => \%commands,
    });
    exit $backend->run();

Net::Remctl::Backend provides a framework for remctl backend commands (commands run by remctld). It can be configured with a list of supported subcommands and handles all the command-line parsing and syntax checking, dispatching the command to the appropriate sub if it is valid.

CLASS METHODS

new(CONFIG)

Create a new backend object with the given configuration. CONFIG should be an anonymous hash with one or more of the following keys:

command

If set, defines the base remctl command implemented by this backend. The primary use of this string is in usage and help output. If set, it will be added to the beginning of each command syntax description so that the help output will match the remctl command that the user actually runs.

commands

The value of this key should be an anonymous hash describing all of the commands that are supported. See below for the supported keys in the command configuration.

help_banner

If set, the value will be displayed as the first line of help output. Recommended best practice is to use a string of the form:

    <service> remctl help:

where <service> is something like Event handling or User database or whatever this set of commands generally does or manipulates.

The commands key, described above, takes a hash of properties for each subcommand supported by this backend. The possible keys in that hash are:

args_match

A reference to an array of regexes that must match the arguments to this function. Each element of the array is matched against the corresponding element in the array of arguments, and if the corresponding regular expression does not match, the command will be rejected with an error about an invalid argument. Set the regular expression to undef to not check the corresponding argument.

There is currently no way to check all arguments in commands that take any number of arguments.

args_max

The maximum number of arguments. If there are more than this number of arguments, run() will die with an error message without running the command.

args_min

The minimum number of arguments. If there are fewer than this number of arguments, run() will die with an error message without running the command.

code

A reference to the sub that implements this command. This sub will be called with the arguments passed on the command line as its arguments (possibly preceded by the options hash if the options parameter is set as described below). It should return the exit status that should be used by the backend as a whole: 0 for success and some non-zero value for an error condition. This sub should print to STDOUT and STDERR to communicate back to the remctl client.

nested

If set, indicates that this is a nested command. The value should be a nested hash of command definitions, the same as the parameter to the commands argument to new(). When this is set, the first argument to this command is taken to be a subcommand name, which is looked up in the hash. All of the hash parameters are interpreted the same as if it were a top-level command.

If this command is called without any arguments, behavior varies based on whether the code parameter is also set alongside the nested parameter. If code is set, the command is called normally, with no arguments. If code is not set, calling this command without a subcommand is treated as an unknown command.

options

A reference to an array of Getopt::Long option specifications. If this setting is present, the arguments passed to run() will be parsed by Getopt::Long using this option specification first, before any other option processing (including checking for minimum and maximum numbers of arguments, checking the validity of arguments, or replacing arguments with data from standard input). The result of parsing options will be passed, as a reference to a hash, as the first argument to the code that implements this command, with all remaining arguments passed as the subsequent arguments.

For example, if this is set to ['help|h', 'version|v'] and the arguments passed to run() are:

    command -hv foo bar

then the code implementing command will be called with the following arguments:

    { help => 1, version => 1 }, 'foo', 'bar'

Getopt::Long will always be configured with the options bundling, no_ignore_case, and require_order. This means, among other things, that the first non-option argument will stop option parsing and all remaining arguments will be passed through verbatim.

If Getopt::Long rejects the options (due to an unknown option or an invalid argument to an option, for example), run() will die with the error message from Getopt::Long without running the command.

stdin

Specifies that one argument to this function should be read from standard input. All of the data on standard input until end of file will be read into memory, and that data will become the argument number given by the value of this key is the argument (based at 1). So if this property is set to 1, the first argument will be the data from standard input, and any other arguments will be shifted down accordingly. The value may be -1, in which case the data from standard input will become the last argument, no matter how many arguments there currently are.

Checks for the number of arguments and for the validity of arguments with regular expression verification are done after reading the data from standard input and transforming the argument list accordingly.

summary

The summary of what this subcommand does, as text. Ideally, this should fit on the same line with the syntax after the help output has been laid out in columns. If it is too long to fit, it will be wrapped, with each subsequent line indented to the column where the summaries start.

If this key is omitted, the subcommand will still be shown in help output, provided that it has a syntax key, but without any trailing summary.

syntax

The syntax of this subcommand. This should be short, since it needs to fit on the same line as the summary of what this subcommand does. Both the command and subcommand should be omitted; the former will be set by the command parameter to the new() constructor for Net::Remctl::Backend, and the latter will come from the command itself. A typical example will look like:

    syntax => '<object>'

which will result in help output (assuming command is set to object and this parameter is set on the delete command) that looks like:

    object delete <object>

Use abbreviations heavily to keep this string short so that the help output will remain readable.

Set this key to the empty string to indicate that this subcommand takes no arguments or flags.

If this key is omitted, the subcommand will be omitted from help output.

INSTANCE METHODS

help()

Returns the formatted help summary for the commands supported by this backend. This is the same as would be printed to standard output in response to the command help with no arguments. The output will consist of the syntax and summary attributes for each command that has a syntax attribute defined, as described above under the command specification. It will be wrapped to 80 columns.

run([COMMAND[, ARG ...]])

Parse the command line and perform the appropriate action. The return value will be the return value of the command run (if any), which should be the exit status that the backend script should use.

The command (which is the remctl subcommand) and arguments can be passed directly to run() as parameters. If no arguments are passed, run() expects @ARGV to contain the parameters passed to the backend script. Either way the first argument will be the subcommand, used to find the appropriate command to run, and any remaining arguments will be arguments to that command. (Note that if the options parameter is set, the first argument passed to the underlying command will be the options hash.)

If there are errors in the parameters to the command, run() will die with an appropriate error message.

DIAGNOSTICS

Since Net::Remctl::Backend is designed to handle command line parsing for a script and report appropriate errors if there are problems with the argument, its run() method may die with various errors. The possible errors are listed below. All will be terminated with a newline so the Perl context information won't be appended.

%s: insufficient arguments: The given command was configured with a args_min parameter, and the user passed in fewer arguments than that.
%s: invalid argument: %s: The given argument to the given command failed to match a regular expression that was set with an args_match parameter.
%s: too many arguments: The given command was configured with a args_max parameter, and the user passed in more arguments than that.

COMPATIBILITY

This module was added in the 3.4 release of remctl. Since 3.5, the module version matches the remctl version but with a leading zero added so that the minor version always has two numbers (so Net::Remctl::Backend 3.05 was included in remctl 3.5).

All currently-supported methods and options have been supported since the original release of the module.

BUGS

There is no way to check all arguments with a regex when the command supports any number of arguments.

AUTHOR

Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.