Ubuntu Manpage: Net::Remctl::Backend - Helper infrastructure for remctl backend programs

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Provided by: libnet-remctl-perl_3.18-2_amd64

NAME

       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();

DESCRIPTION

       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

       Copyright 2019-2020, 2022 Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>

       Copyright 2012-2014 The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

       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.