[j-nsp] Netconf & namespaces

[Phil Mayers]

On 25/06/14 02:32, Phil Shafer wrote:
> Phil Mayers writes:
>> The fundamental question is: are namespaces used incorrectly all over
>> the place in Netconf?
>
> JUNOS has some namespace issues, suffering from both pre-rfc
> implementation problems and attempts to re-use the underlaying
> Junoscript XML API code.  PR 826463 is addressing these.

That's useful to know. Whether other vendors "accept" that these are 
issues (cough cisco cough) is another matter... ;o)

> Namespaces are a two-edged sword, and while they are great for
> telling you _exactly_ what data you are seeing, this exactness
> is often painful.

I guess.

OTOH I've seem XML come back from some devices like this:

<rpc-reply>
   <namspaced:tag>
      ...

i.e. no xmlns for the namespace on a tag. This is just broken, and 
really hard to deal with using normal XML libraries.

I don't think netconf wants to end up like XMPP where you have to use a 
custom XML parser and serialiser just to make it go, at which point you 
might as well not have used XML. We're still early enough into Netconf 
that we might be able to dodge that, if enough people push back on it.

>      ns junos = "http://xml.juniper.net/junos/*/junos";

Yeah, that's kind of annoying... I do wonder why you didn't rev the 
version number on dialect changes rather than software version cahnges, 
but I guess it's too late to go back on that one.

Anyway thanks for the feedback - it's always reassuring to know people 
at the vendor side are paying attention.

Cheers,
Phil