I have one module NetApp.pm which consumes NaElement and NaServer as well as my own modules for DfmServer, Policy, DataSet etc... All the complexity of itter-start and itter-next as well as the datastructure access with get_child_string and get_child (which depends on a lot of implied knowledge of the returned data structure) is abstracted in these modules.
Using these modules I think the code looks cleaner. More importantly the resultant code does not require any knowledge of the returned data structure, protects against future changes by an abstration interface; it always passes back an inside out object with defined accessor methods. The end user can not abuse the datastructure with direct hash element access.
An example of use is shown below for comment.
use NetApp; # consumes NaElement, NaServer and NetApp::DFM
use warnings;
use strict;
use vars qw (
$DFMSERVER
$DFMUSER
$DFMPASSWORD
$POLICY
$DATASET
$VOLUME
);
# not real values obviously
$DFMSERVER = 'host1';
$DFMUSER = 'username';
$DFMPASSWOR = 'password';
$POLCY = 'Backup';
$DATASET = 'MyDataSet';
$VOLUME = 'filer1:/vol0';
my $dfm = NetApp::DFM::DfmServer->new(
{
hostname => $DFMSERVER,
username => $DFMUSER,
password => $DFMPASSWORD,
}
);
# fetch a volume
my $volume = $dfm->get_volume($VOLUME);
# fetch a policy
my $policy = $dfm->get_polict($POLICY)
# create a dataset
my $dataset = $dfm->create_dataset($DATASET);
# assign the policy to the dataset (returns the updated dataset)
my $dataset = $dataset->add_policy($policy->get_name);
# add a volume to the source node of the dataset as defined by the policy (returns the new list of members)
my @members = $dataset->add_member(
{ name => $volume->get_name,
node => $policy->get_from_name, }
);
The code just expresses the actions. I don't have to clutter it up with itter-start,next,end and there are no nested get_child('magic-name').
Does that make sense?
Chris
