I am not sure that listing specific types in a protocol specification
is what I would do for a generic solution. Anyway, people who were
actively involved in the design of RESTCONF should get involved in
this discussion.

/js

On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 08:31:19AM +0000, yuchaode wrote:
> How about the uuid type defined in RFC6991? I think it can be globally unique.
> 
> -----邮件原件-----
> 发件人: Jürgen Schönwälder [mailto:[email protected]] 
> 发送时间: 2022年5月25日 16:18
> 收件人: yuchaode <[email protected]>
> 抄送: '[email protected]' <[email protected]>; '[email protected]' 
> <[email protected]>; Fatai Zhang <[email protected]>; Zhenghaomian 
> <[email protected]>; liuzhoulong <[email protected]>; Chenchunhui 
> (C) <[email protected]>
> 主题: Re: 答复: 答复: [netmod] A question about YANG identifier design
> 
> I do not think there is currently a way to specify in YANG that a key of a 
> list is globally unique and hence a generic protocol engine won't know which 
> list key's have this property. I assume the current text is there to cover 
> the case where keys are not unique and you like to drill down the data tree 
> by processing the URL left to right.
> 
> /js
> 
> On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 08:06:13AM +0000, yuchaode wrote:
> > Thank you for your reference.
> > 
> > That is where I think it's not reasonable. If the terminal branch list-c's 
> > identifier can be global unique, specifying its parent's and grandparent's 
> > identifier is redundant.
> > Certainly, if list-c and its parent and grandparent identifier could not be 
> > global unique, that could be a problem. Multiple list-c instances would be 
> > return with a same identifier. 
> > But how about list-b's and list-a's identifier are returned at the same 
> > time when querying list-c instance, if list-b and list-c's identifier could 
> > not be global unique and are not specified when querying?
> > 
> > -----邮件原件-----
> > 发件人: Jürgen Schönwälder [mailto:[email protected]]
> > 发送时间: 2022年5月25日 15:22
> > 收件人: yuchaode <[email protected]>
> > 抄送: '[email protected]' <[email protected]>; '[email protected]' 
> > <[email protected]>; Fatai Zhang <[email protected]>; Zhenghaomian 
> > <[email protected]>; liuzhoulong <[email protected]>; 
> > Chenchunhui (C) <[email protected]>
> > 主题: Re: 答复: [netmod] A question about YANG identifier design
> > 
> > RFC 8040 says on page 27 (good old times where RFCs still had page
> > numbers):
> > 
> >    If a data node in the path expression is a YANG list node, then the
> >    key values for the list (if any) MUST be encoded according to the
> >    following rules:
> > 
> > And also this one:
> > 
> >    o  All of the components in the "key" statement MUST be encoded.
> >       Partial instance identifiers are not supported.
> > 
> > /js
> > 
> > On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 01:36:43AM +0000, yuchaode wrote:
> > > Thank you, Jürgen!
> > > 
> > > A generic identifier design is quite good for the other generic model 
> > > design, just like the hardware components design mentioned by you.
> > > But there have been some other models defined in a nesting level already, 
> > > for example network topology and TE topology etc. If we want to reference 
> > > a termination-point object, we need to specify its belonging network-id 
> > > and node-id.
> > > So for this kind of model, can we retrieve or reference terminal branch 
> > > objects without its trunk branch objects' identifier if the RESTCONF 
> > > server can guarantee the global uniqueness of terminal branch objects' 
> > > identifier.
> > > Just like the URL I mentioned in last email:
> > > https://{{host:port}}/{{restconf}}/data/ietf-example:root/list-a/lis
> > > t-b/list-c={leaf-5}
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -----邮件原件-----
> > > 发件人: Jürgen Schönwälder 
> > > [mailto:[email protected]]
> > > 发送时间: 2022年5月24日 18:16
> > > 收件人: yuchaode <[email protected]>
> > > 抄送: '[email protected]' <[email protected]>; '[email protected]' 
> > > <[email protected]>; Fatai Zhang <[email protected]>; 
> > > Zhenghaomian <[email protected]>; liuzhoulong 
> > > <[email protected]>; Chenchunhui (C) <[email protected]>
> > > 主题: Re: [netmod] A question about YANG identifier design
> > > 
> > > You need to fit your data model to the data modeling language and the 
> > > protocol. This can be a challenge at times but this is what it is.
> > > 
> > > >From what you are writing, it seems that you try to encode the
> > > containment relationship of hardware components into the nesting 
> > > levels of a YANG model.  This is likely not a good idea to start 
> > > with and this may be the root cause of the problems you are facing. 
> > > Note how RFC 8348 defines a hardware model that is essentially a 
> > > flat list of hardware components and the containment relationship is 
> > > modeled by additional contains-child etc. leafs. This approach gives 
> > > us a simple /hardware/component/name that can be used to refer to 
> > > any hardware component easily. Sure, the downside is that retrieving 
> > > all components contained in another components is a bit more complex 
> > > but being able to reference all hardware components in the same way 
> > > likely is a big enough advantage to go for a flat list. (And once 
> > > you think about it, the containment relationship is just one 
> > > relationship, there may be others. By using a flat list with leafs, 
> > > you can model multiple
> > > relationships.)
> > > 
> > > /js
> > > 
> > > On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 09:39:21AM +0000, yuchaode wrote:
> > > > Hello friends,
> > > > 
> > > > I have got some puzzles about YANG model design, to be more specific, 
> > > > it is about the identifier design in YANG model.
> > > > 
> > > > As we know, YANG model is a tree-like structure, different objects are 
> > > > defined in different branches according their different levels. E.G. 
> > > > there is such a YANG tree:
> > > > module: ietf-example
> > > >    +--rw root
> > > >       +--rw list-a* [leaf-1]
> > > >          +--rw leaf-1    yang:uuid
> > > >          +--rw leaf-2?   string
> > > >          +--rw list-b* [leaf-3]
> > > >             +--rw leaf-3    yang:uuid
> > > >             +--rw leaf-4?   string
> > > >             +--rw list-c* [leaf-5]
> > > >                +--rw leaf-5    yang:uuid
> > > >                +--rw leaf-6?   string
> > > > List-c is child object of list-b and list-b is child object of list-a.
> > > > 
> > > > If we want to retrieve a list-c instance, we need to know his parent 
> > > > list-b's and his grandparent list-a's identifier to construct a 
> > > > RESTCONF GET request URL:
> > > > https://{{host:port}}/{{restconf}}/data/ietf-example:root/list-a={leaf-1}/list-b={leaf-3}/list-c={leaf-5}.
> > > > However, you can easily find that the identifier of list-a, list-b and 
> > > > list-c are all UUID format. Usually, UUID is required to be unique 
> > > > globally. If the RESTCONF server complies with UUID requirement 
> > > > strictly, the identifier of list-b and list-a are redundant.
> > > > 
> > > > Similarly, if there is a YANG data model want to reference list-c in 
> > > > its model, the reference identifier should include list-b and list-a's 
> > > > identifier at the same time besides list-c's identifier. If this list-c 
> > > > instance repeat a lot of time in this data model, there would be a lot 
> > > > of redundant list-b & list-a's identifier.
> > > > 
> > > > Besides, this hierarchical identifier brings some problems when we are 
> > > > designing generic model. For example, if we want to design an alarm 
> > > > model, considering that the main information of alarm includes alarm 
> > > > ID, alarm level, tips message, location etc. which are generic for all 
> > > > inventory objects, it is easy for us to choose to design a generic 
> > > > model. For the inventory object alarm happened on, we would like to use 
> > > > a generic inventory resource type and resource UUID to specify. But if 
> > > > we use hierarchical identifier, considering alarm could be happened on 
> > > > NE, board or port .etc. and NE contains boards and board contains 
> > > > ports, we cannot use a generic identifier attribute to specify NE, 
> > > > board and port at the same time. For NE, we need to use one attribute 
> > > > to define its ne-id. And for board we need two attributes to define its 
> > > > id, ne-id and board-id. And for port, we need three attributes to 
> > > > define its id, ne-id, board-id and port-id.
> > > > 
> > > > So I am wondering if for those objects which are using UUID as 
> > > > identifier, the server should implement this UUID globally unique. When 
> > > > retrieving these objects, there is no necessary to specify their 
> > > > parent's and grandparent's identifier. Just take the list-c retrieval 
> > > > above for example, the URL could be changed to be:
> > > > https://{{host:port}}/{{restconf}}/data/ietf-example:root/list-a/list-b/list-c={leaf-5}<https://%7b%7bhost:port%7d%7d/%7b%7brestconf%7d%7d/data/ietf-example:root/list-a/list-b/list-c=%7bleaf-5%7d>.
> > > >  And for model object reference scenario, we can also use list-c's 
> > > > identifier only.
> > > > 
> > > > This is just my consideration, any comments are welcome! Thank you!
> > > > 
> > > > B.R.
> > > > Chaode
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > netmod mailing list
> > > > [email protected]
> > > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/netmod
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > Jürgen Schönwälder              Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
> > > Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
> > > Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <https://www.jacobs-university.de/>
> > 
> > -- 
> > Jürgen Schönwälder              Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
> > Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
> > Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <https://www.jacobs-university.de/>
> 
> -- 
> Jürgen Schönwälder              Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
> Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
> Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <https://www.jacobs-university.de/>

-- 
Jürgen Schönwälder              Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <https://www.jacobs-university.de/>

_______________________________________________
netmod mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/netmod

Reply via email to