NAME

       Nagios::Object - Creates perl objects to represent Nagios objects

DESCRIPTION

       This module contains the code for creating perl objects to represent any of the Nagios
       objects.  All of the perl classes are auto-generated at compile-time, so it's pretty
       trivial to add new attributes or even entire objects.  The following is a list of
       currently supported classes:

        Nagios::TimePeriod
        Nagios::Command
        Nagios::Contact
        Nagios::ContactGroup
        Nagios::Host
        Nagios::Service
        Nagios::HostGroup
        Nagios::ServiceEscalation
        Nagios::HostDependency
        Nagios::HostEscalation
        Nagios::HostGroupEscalation
        Nagios::ServiceDependency
        -- next two are for status.dat in Nagios 2.x
        Nagios::Info
        Nagios::Program

EXAMPLE

        use Nagios::Object;
        my $generic_host = Nagios::Host->new(
           register                     => 0,
           parents                      => undef,
           check_command                => $some_command,
           max_check_attempts           => 3,
           checks_enabled               => 1,
           event_handler                => $some_command,
           event_handler_enabled        => 0,
           low_flap_threshold          => 0,
           high_flap_threshold         => 0,
           flap_detection_enabled       => 0,
           process_perf_data            => 1,
           retain_status_information    => 1,
           retain_nonstatus_information => 1,
           notification_interval        => $timeperiod,
           notification_options         => [qw(d u r)],
           notifications_enabled        => 1,
           stalking_options             => [qw(o d u)]
        );

        # this will automatically 'use' $generic_host
        my $localhost = $generic_host->new(
           host_name => "localhost",
           alias     => "Loopback",
           address   => "127.0.0.1"
        );

        my $hostname = $localhost->host_name();
        printf "max check attempts for $hostname is %s.\n",
            $localhost->max_check_attempts;

        $localhost->set_event_handler(
            Nagios::Command->new(
                command_name => "new_event_handler",
                command_line => "/bin/true"
            )
        );

METHODS

       new()
           Create a new object of one of the types listed above.

           Calling new() on an existing object will use the LHS object as the template for the
           object being created.   This is mainly useful for creating objects without involving
           Nagios::Object::Config (like in the test suite).

            Nagios::Host->new( ... );

       dump()
           Output a Nagios define { } block from an object.  This is still EXPERIMENTAL, but may
           eventually be robust enough to use for a configuration GUI.   Passing in a single true
           argument will tell it to flatten the object inheritance on dump.

            print $object->dump();
            print $object->dump(1); # flatten

       name()
           This method is common to all classes created by this module.  It should always return
           the textual name for an object.  It is used internally by the Nagios::Object modules
           to allow polymorphism (which is what makes this module so compact).  This is the only
           way to retrieve the name of a template, since they are identified by their "name"
           field.

            my $svc_desc = $service->name;
            my $hostname = $host->name;

           Which is just short for:

            my $svc_desc = $service->service_description;
            my $hostname = $service->host_name;

       register()
           Returns true/undef to indicate whether the calling object is registerable or not.

            if ( $object->register ) { print $object->name, " is registerable." }

       has_attribute()
           Returns true/undef to indicate whether the calling object has the attribute specified
           as the only argument.

            # check to see if $object has attribute "command_line"
            die if ( !$object->has_attribute("command_line") );

       list_attributes()
           Returns a list of valid attributes for the calling object.

            my @host_attributes = $host->list_attributes();

       attribute_type()
           Returns the type of data expected by the object's set_ method for the given attribute.
           For some fields like notification_options, it may return "char_flag."

           For "name" attributes, it will simply return whatever %setup_data contains.

           This method needs some TLC ...

            my $type = $host->attribute_type("notification_period");

       attribute_is_list()
           Returns true if the attribute is supposed to be a list (ARRAYREF).

            if ( $object->attribute_is_list("members") ) {
               $object->set_members( [$member] );
            } else {
               $object->set_members( $member );
            }

AUTHOR

       Al Tobey <tobeya@cpan.org>

       Thank you to the fine people of #perl on freenode.net for helping me with some hairy code
       and silly optimizations.

WARNINGS

       See AUTHOR.