[j-nsp] SLAX script, redefining variables

[Tom Storey]

Hi all.

It seems that older SLAX implementations dont have the ability to redefine
variable (Juniper is calling them immutable variables). This is apparently
fixed in 1.1 on JunOS12+ boxes with something called a mutable variable
(defined with mvar instead of var) but all of the boxes I am using are not
on JunOS12+ yet.

Has anyone found a way to collect a whole bunch of information, and then
display it at the end of the script, rather than duplicating their output
code 50 times to handle the various exceptions?

e.g. a script I am writing grabs the tx/rx figures for optics and lists
them, along with the description of the interface, so I can run my op
script and get a list of power levels, grep for destination devices etc and
see whats happening with my circuits.

But there are a couple of exceptions that I hit along the way:

1) Descriptions arent always on the physical interface, so if theres no
description there I need to look at a logical interface, which is usually
unit 0 in my case
2) SONET interfaces dont use the same "variable" to store the rx power
figure as ethernet interfaces, so depending on the interface type I need to
look at a different variable for the rx power figure

To handle these exceptions would be quite easy if I could simply use a
bunch of IF blocks to test for the various locations of the information I
want, set them in to variables, and then at the end dump it out to the
screen.

But without being able to redefine a variable, and with variables defined
inside an IF block not being accessible outside of that IF block, I will
need to reproduce my output code numerous times.

Anyone know of a solution?

Thanks
Tom