Re: [netmod] xpath expressions in JSON

[Robert Wilton <[e-mail]>]

On 11/10/2018 11:50, Martin Bjorklund wrote:
> Robert Wilton <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> On 11/10/2018 11:21, Martin Bjorklund wrote:
>>> Andy Bierman <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 11:39 PM, Martin Bjorklund <[e-mail]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Andy Bierman <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 6:59 PM, Reshad Rahman (rrahman) <
>>>>> [e-mail]>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 2018-10-10, 9:59 AM, "netmod on behalf of Martin Bjorklund" <
>>>>>>> [e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       Ladislav Lhotka <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>>>       > Martin Bjorklund <[e-mail]> writes:
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > > Hi,
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > While reviewing restconf-notif, I saw this example:
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > >    {
>>>>>>>       > >       "ietf-subscribed-notifications:input": {
>>>>>>>       > >          "stream": "NETCONF",
>>>>>>>       > >          "stream-xpath-filter": "/ds:foo/",
>>>>>>>       > >          "dscp": "10"
>>>>>>>       > >       }
>>>>>>>       > >    }
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > Note the "stream-xpath-filter".  It has a prefix in the XPath
>>>>>>> string.
>>>>>>>       > > How are prefixes declared when JSON is used?
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > The leaf "stream-xpath-filter" says:
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > >               o  The set of namespace declarations are those in
>>>>>>> scope on
>>>>>>>       > >                  the 'stream-xpath-filter' leaf element.
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > (I think I provided that text...)
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > This assumes that the encoding is XML, or at leas that the
>>>>> encoding
>>>>>>>       > > can somehow transfer namespace declarations.
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > It can't. There are two options:
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > 1. have different representations of this value in XML and JSON,
>>>>>>>       >    analogically to instance indentifiers (sec. 6.11 in RFC 7951).
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > 2. use a module name rather than a prefix in XML, too.
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > I would suggest #2.
>>>>>>> <RR> But that means making non-backwards compatible change to the XML
>>>>>>> representation?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not really. It means NETMOD WG would be creating its own special
>>>>>> variant
>>>>> of
>>>>>> XPath.
>>>>> Not at all.  What I propose is perfectly fine, legal XPath 1.0.
>>>>>
>>>>> XPath 1.0 says that an XPath expression is evaluated in a context.
>>>>> One item in the context is a set of mappings from <prefix> to <uri>,
>>>>> where <prefix> is used to lookup prefixes used in the XPath
>>>>> expression, e.g. in "/foo:interfaces" "foo" is the prefix.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is perfectly fine to say that the prefix mapping set is this:
>>>>>
>>>>>      "ietf-interfaces" -> "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-interfaces"
>>>>>      "ietf-ip"         -> "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-ip"
>>>>>
>>>>> and use that to evaluate the expression
>>>>>
>>>>>     /ietf-interfaces:interfaces/ietf-interfaces:interface/ietf-ip/ipv4
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> The XPath expression is normally parsed within an XML instance
>>>> document.
>>>> There are "xmlns" attributes present that map the prefix to a
>>>> namespace URI.
>>>> These mappings will not be present in the JSON at all.
>>>>
>>>> A custom XPath implementation is required to magically identify the
>>>> prefix
>>>> as a module name and magically find the namespace URI for the module
>>>> name.
>>> I disagree.  You need an XPath implementation + custom code to set up
>>> the environment.
>> This is OK, but can we just use the JSON encoding instance identifier
>> format exactly?  I.e .RFC 7951 section 6.11.
>>
>> So "/ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface/ietf-ip:ipv4/enabled"
>>
>> can trivially be expanded to:
>>
>> "/ietf-interfaces:interfaces/ietf-interfaces:interface/ietf-ip:ipv4/ietf-ip:enabled",
>>
>> and then interpreted with the context:
>>       "ietf-interfaces" -> "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-interfaces"
>>     "ietf-ip"         -> "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-ip"
> *this* would require a custom XPath implementation.
Why?  I.e. how is this different from stating "Custom code is needed to 
connect things together"?

>
> and it is not obvious what the rules for the "auto-assignment" of
> prefixes would be.  For example:
>
>    /ietf-interfaces//ietf-ip:address[../foo]
>
> what is the prefix for "foo"?
OK, so here the module for "../foo" would need to be specified.

Perhaps the rule that I'm looking for is the module name may be omitted 
when it matches the parent node module, and can easily be inferred.  
I.e. so that for any XPath string, it is possible to trivially expand it 
without any additional schema context.

It just seems to be that requiring the long hand of 
"/ietf-interfaces:interfaces/ietf-interfaces:interface/ietf-ip:ipv4/ietf-ip:enabled" 
seems like it will get very verbose, and I wonder whether we are 
introducing yet another Xpath format to YANG.

Finally, I'm trying to figure out have RFC 8040 query parameter (sect 
4.8.4), which also uses XPath expressions is meant to work. That states:

The set of namespace declarations is the set of prefix and
       namespace pairs for all supported YANG modules, where the prefix
       is the YANG module name and the namespace is as defined by the
       "namespace" statement in the YANG module.


Yet the examples in section 8.3.6 don't seem to use namespace prefixes 
in very many places, e.g. why is it "/example-mod:event1/name='joe'" and 
not "/example-mod:event1/example-mod:name='joe'"?  Is the example wrong, 
or otherwise what am I missing? :-)

Thanks,
Rob


>
>
>
> /martin
>
>
>
>> Thanks,
>> Rob
>>   
>>
>>> There is no standard XPath implementation that can just take an XML
>>> instance document + YANG module and figure out what to do.  Custom
>>> code is needed to connect things together.  This proposal doesn't
>>> change this.
>>>
>>>
>>> /martin
>>>
>>>
>>>> A normal XPath implementation will not find any namespace mapping for
>>>> the
>>>> prefixes.
>>>>
>>>> An XPath expression has no concept of the "current module" inherited
>>>> from
>>>> the parent
>>>> like the JSON encoding. This is problematic for predicates
>>>>
>>>>      /ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface[name='eth0']
>>>>
>>>> XPath says the missing prefixes for 'interface' and 'name' are simply
>>>> missing (no namespace).
>>>> The JSON encoding says "ietf-interfaces" is used for 'interfaces'. and
>>>> 'interface'.
>>>> There is no specification for the 'name' node inside a predicate.
>>>>
>>>> So you must mean the full module name will be used at every node:
>>>>
>>>>    /ietf-interfaces:interfaces/ietf-interfaces:interface[ietf-interfaces:name='eth0']
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> /martin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>       Hmm, so you mean change the leaf "stream-xpath-filter" to say:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>                o  The set of namespace declarations has one member for
>>>>> each
>>>>>>>                   YANG module supported by the server.  This member maps
>>>>>>>                   from the YANG module name to the YANG module namespace.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>                   This means that in the XPath expression, the module
>>>>> name
>>>>>>>                   serves as the prefix.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       .... and then also give an example of this.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       This is probably what we need to do in all places where
>>>>> yang:xpath1.0
>>>>>>>       is used, going forward.  Maybe even define a new type
>>>>>>>       yang:xpath1.0-2 (name?) with the set of namespace declarations
>>>>>>>       built-in.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> We should avoid making off-the-shelf implementations of standards like
>>>>>> XPath unusable.
>>>>>> At the very least this should be only available if the server supports
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> (with a capability URI)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <RR> So we need an update to RFC7951?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Reshad.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       /martin
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > Lada
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > How is this supposed to work with JSON?
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > /martin
>>>>>>>       > >
>>>>>>>       > > _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>       > > netmod mailing list
>>>>>>>       > > [e-mail]
>>>>>>>       > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/netmod
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>       > --
>>>>>>>       > Ladislav Lhotka
>>>>>>>       > Head, CZ.NIC Labs
>>>>>>>       > PGP Key ID: 0xB8F92B08A9F76C67
>>>>>>>       >
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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