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ovsdb-idlc(1) Open vSwitch Manual ovsdb-idlc(1)

NAME

ovsdb-idlc - Open vSwitch IDL (Interface Definition Language) compiler

SYNOPSIS

ovsdb-idlc annotate schema annotations
ovsdb-idlc c-idl-header idl
ovsdb-idlc c-idl-source idl
ovsdb-idlc --help
ovsdb-idlc --version

DESCRIPTION

The ovsdb-idlc program is a command-line tool for translating Open vSwitch database interface definition language (IDL) schemas into other formats. It is used while building Open vSwitch, not at installation or configuration time. Thus, it is not normally installed as part of Open vSwitch.

The idl files used as input for most ovsdb-idlc commands have the same format as the OVSDB schemas, specified in the OVSDB specification, with a few additions:

"idlPrefix" member of <database-schema>
This member, which is required, specifies a string that is prefixed to top-level names in C bindings. It should probably end in an underscore.
"idlHeader" member of <database-schema>
This member, which is required, specifies the name of the IDL header. It will be output on an #include line in the source file generated by the C bindings. It should include the bracketing "" or <>.
"cDecls" member of <database-schema>

"hDecls" member of <database-schema>
These optional members may specify arbitrary code to include in the generated .c or .h file, respectively, in each case just after the #include directives in those files.
"extensions" member of <table-schema>

"extensions" member of <column-schema>
This member is optional. If specified, it is an object whose contents describes extensions to the OVSDB schema language, for the purpose of specifying interpretation by the IDL.
"synthetic" member of <column-schema> "extensions" object
If this optional member is set to true, then it indicates that the column is not expected to be found in the actual database. Instead, code supplied by the IDL's client fills in the desired structure members based on the value of one or more other database columns. This can be used to cache the result of a calculation, for example.
"parse" member of <column-schema> "extensions" object
This member should be present if and only if the column is synthetic. It should be a string that contains C code to set the value of the column's member in an object named row, e.g. "row->column = 1;" if the column's name is column and has integer type. The code may rely on the columns named in dependencies to be initialized. The function can get called for rows that do not satisfy the constraints in the schema, e.g. that a pointer to another is nonnull, so it must not rely on those constraints.
"unparse" member of <column-schema> "extensions" object
This member is honored only if the column is synthetic. It should be a string that contains C code to free the data in the column's member in an object named row, e.g. "free(row->column);" if the column's name is column and points to data that was allocated by the parse function and needs to be freed.
"dependencies" member of <column-schema> "extensions" object
This member should be a list of the names of columns whose values are used by the code in parse and unparse. The IDL ensures that dependencies are parsed before the columns that depends on them, and vice versa for unparsing.

Commands

Reads schema, which should be a file in JSON format (ordinarily an OVSDB schema file), then reads and executes the Python syntax fragment in annotations. The Python syntax fragment is passed the JSON object as a local variable named s. It may modify this data in any way. After the Python code returns, the object as modified is re-serialized as JSON on standard output.
Reads idl and prints on standard output a C header file that defines a structure for each table defined by the schema. If a column name in idl is a C or C++ keyword, it will be appended with an underscore.
Reads idl and prints on standard output a C source file that implements C bindings for the database defined by the schema. If a column name in idl is a C or C++ keyword, it will be appended with an underscore.

Options

See the file lib/common.man.

BUGS

ovsdb-idlc is more lenient about the format of OVSDB schemas than other OVSDB tools. It may successfully parse schemas that, e.g., ovsdb-tool rejects.

SEE ALSO

The OVSDB specification.

November 2009 Open vSwitch