[OpenAFS] AFS Perl API bos & vos requirements (resend)

Norbert Gruener nog@MPA-Garching.MPG.DE
Thu, 15 May 2003 14:34:01 +0200


On Fri, May 02 2003, Chaskiel M Grundman wrote:
> 
> --On Friday, May 02, 2003 15:28:26 -0400 Phil.Moore@morganstanley.com wrote:
> 
> > The problem is far more complex than just ripping main() out of vos.c,
> > and turning that code into a library.  As soon as you l.ook at the
> > code, you'll see that each of the routines is basically a wrapper
> > around VLDB RX calls, and the return values are just pretty printed.
> > 
> > What you need for building a perl/python/ruby API (I'm thinking ahead
> > :-) is a library that returns data structures, not prints stuff on
> > stdout.
>
> --On Friday, May 02, 2003 12:38:54 -0400 "Jenkins, Steven"
> <JENKINSS@mail.etsu.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Is your concern a naming issue?  Ie, would you be more comfortable to
> > see the library named libvos_client.a?  
> 
> My concern is that what you will be implimenting is not an "AFS Perl API"
> for the volser/vldb. the code in vos.c does not represent an API. it calls
> an API that's already in a library. (FWIW, vos.c is not what handles all
> the hairy parts of doing volume moves and releases. that stuff is handled
> inside UV_MoveVolume and UV_ReleaseVolume respectively...)
> 
> The other parts of the perl api code are structured around the API's that
> already exist, not around the existing command syntax. 

After some time of consideration I have made up my mind.  For reasons
of backward compatibility with older AFS and OpenAFS versions I will
not pick up the idea of new libraries.  This will not be my primary
solution.  First I want to interface the existing library APIs.  And
if there are new library APIs available in the future then it might be
worthwhile to write a Perl API for these libraries.

Cheers,

Norbert
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