path: root/doc/cli.md

FRR Command Line Interface
==========================

Definition Grammar
------------------

This is a reference for the syntax used when defining new CLI commands.  An
example definition is:

```
DEFUN (command_name,
       command_name_cmd,
-->    "example <command|line [interface]> DEFINITION...",
       <..doc strings..>)
```

The arrowed part is the definition string.

Explicit syntax rules in Flex and Bison may be found in lib/command_lex.l and
lib/command_parse.y, respectively. If you can read BNF and regex those will be
more useful than this document.

If the parser is throwing syntax or other errors and you can't figure out why,
it's unlikely to be a bug in the parser. If the error message is not useful,
please file a bug for a better error message. If all else fails, read the token
definitions in the lexer source and the Bison BNF in the parser source.

Characters allowed in each token type:

Tokens
------
* `WORD`        -- A token that begins with +, -, or a lowercase letter. It is
                  an unchanging part of the command and will only match itself.
                  Example: "show ip bgp", every token is a WORD.
* `IPV4`        -- 'A.B.C.D', matches an IPv4 address.
* `IPV6`        -- 'X:X::X:X', matches an IPv6 address.
* `IPV4_PREFIX` -- 'A.B.C.D/M', matches an IPv4 prefix in CIDR notation.
* `IPV6_PREFIX` -- 'X:X::X:X/M', matches an IPv6 prefix in CIDR notation.
* `VARIABLE`    -- Begins with a capital letter. Matches any input.
* `RANGE`       -- Numeric range delimited by parentheses, e.g. (-100 - 100) or
                 (10-20). Will only match numbers in the range.

Rules
-----
* `<angle|brackets>`  -- Contain sequences of tokens separated by pipes and
                       provide mutual exclusion.  Sequences may contain
                       `<mutual|exclusion>` but not as the first token.
                       Disallowed: `"example <<a|b> c|d>"`
                       Allowed:   `"example <a c|b c|d>"`
* `[square brackets]` -- Contains sequences of tokens that are optional (can be
                       omitted).  `[<a|b>]` can be shortened to `[a|b]`.
* `{curly|braces}`    -- similar to angle brackets, but instead of mutual
                       exclusion, curly braces indicate that one or more of the
                       pipe-separated sequences may be provided in any order.
* `VARIADICS...`      -- Any token which accepts input (so anything except WORD)
                       and that occurs as the last token of a line may be
                       followed by an ellipsis, which indicates that input
                       matching the token may be repeated an unlimited number
                       of times.
* `$name`             -- Specify a variable name for the preceding token. See
                       "Variable Names" below.

Some general notes:

* Options are allowed at the beginning of the command. The developer is
  entreated to use these extremely sparingly. They are most useful for
  implementing the 'no' form of configuration commands. Please think carefully
  before using them for anything else. There is usually a better solution, even
  if it is just separating out the command definition into separate ones.

* The developer should judiciously apply separation of concerns when defining
  CLI. CLI definitions for two unrelated or vaguely related commands or
  configuration items should be defined in separate commands. Clarity is
  preferred over LOC (within reason).

Variable Names
--------------
The parser tries to fill the "varname" field on each token.  This can happen
either manually or automatically.  Manual specifications work by appending
`"$name"` after the input specifier:

```
foo bar$cmd WORD$name A.B.C.D$ip
```

Note that you can also assign variable names to fixed input tokens, this can
be useful if multiple commands share code.  You can also use "$name" after a
multiple-choice option:

```
foo bar <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>$addr [optionA|optionB]$mode
```

The variable name is in this case assigned to the last token in each of the
branches.

Automatic assignment of variable names works by applying the following rules:

- manual names always have priority
- a "[no]" at the beginning receives "no" as varname on the "no" token
- VARIABLE tokens whose text is not "WORD" or "NAME" receive a cleaned lowercase
  version of the token text as varname, e.g. "ROUTE-MAP" becomes "route_map".
- other variable tokens (i.e. everything except "fixed") receive the text of
  the preceding fixed token as varname, if one can be found.  E.g.:
  "ip route A.B.C.D/M INTERFACE" assigns "route" to the "A.B.C.D/M" token.

These rules should make it possible to avoid manual varname assignment in 90%
of the cases.

Doc Strings
-----------
Each token in a command definition should be documented with a brief doc
string that informs a user of the meaning and/or purpose of the subsequent
command tree. These strings are provided as the last parameter to DEFUN macros,
concatenated together and separated by an escaped newline ('\n'). These are
best explained by example.

```
DEFUN (config_terminal,
       config_terminal_cmd,
       "configure terminal",
       "Configuration from vty interface\n"
       "Configuration terminal\n")
```

The last parameter is split into two lines for readability. Two newline
delimited doc strings are present, one for each token in the command. The
second string documents the functionality of the 'terminal' command in the
'configure' tree.

Note that the first string, for 'configure' does not contain documentation for
'terminal'. This is because the CLI is best envisioned as a tree, with tokens
defining branches. An imaginary 'start' token is the root of every command in a
CLI node. Each subsequent written token descends into a subtree, so the
documentation for that token ideally summarizes all the functionality contained
in the subtree.

A consequence of this structure is that the developer must be careful to use
the same doc strings when defining multiple commands that are part of the same
tree. Commands which share prefixes must share the same doc strings for those
prefixes. On startup the parser will generate warnings if it notices
inconsistent doc strings. Behavior is undefined; the same token may show up
twice in completions, with different doc strings, or it may show up once with a
random doc string. Parser warnings should be heeded and fixed to avoid
confusing users.

The number of doc strings provided must be equal to the amount of tokens
present in the command definition, read left to right, ignoring any special
constructs.

In the examples below, each arrowed token needs a doc string.

```
  "show ip bgp"
   ^    ^  ^

  "command <foo|bar> [example]"
   ^        ^   ^     ^
```

Data Structures
---------------
On startup, the CLI parser sequentially parses each command string definition
and constructs a directed graph with each token forming a node. This graph is
the basis of the entire CLI system. It is used to match user input in order to
generate command completions and match commands to functions.

There is one graph per CLI node (not the same as a graph node in the CLI
graph). The CLI node struct keeps a reference to its graph (see lib/command.h).

While most of the graph maintains the form of a tree, special constructs
outlined in the Rules section introduce some quirks. <>, [] and {} form
self-contained 'subgraphs'. Each subgraph is a tree except that all of the
'leaves' actually share a child node. This helps with minimizing graph size and
debugging.

As an example, the subgraph generated by <foo|bar> looks like this:

                      .
                      .
                      |
                 +----+---+
           +--- -+  FORK  +----+
           |     +--------+    |
        +--v---+            +--v---+
        | foo  |            | bar  |
        +--+---+            +--+---+
           |      +------+     |
           +------> JOIN <-----+
                  +---+--+
                      |
                      .
                      .

FORK and JOIN nodes are plumbing nodes that don't correspond to user input.
They're necessary in order to deduplicate these constructs where applicable.

Options follow the same form, except that there is an edge from the FORK node
to the JOIN node.

Keywords follow the same form, except that there is an edge from JOIN to FORK.
Because of this the CLI graph cannot be called acyclic. There is special logic
in the input matching code that keeps a stack of paths already taken through
the node in order to disallow following the same path more than once.

Variadics are a bit special; they have an edge back to themselves, which allows
repeating the same input indefinitely.

The leaves of the graph are nodes that have no out edges. These nodes are
special; their data section does not contain a token, as most nodes do, or
NULL, as in FORK/JOIN nodes, but instead has a pointer to a cmd_element. All
paths through the graph that terminate on a leaf are guaranteed to be defined
by that command. When a user enters a complete command, the command matcher
tokenizes the input and executes a DFS on the CLI graph. If it is
simultaneously able to exhaust all input (one input token per graph node), and
then find exactly one leaf connected to the last node it reaches, then the
input has matched the corresponding command and the command is executed. If it
finds more than one node, then the command is ambiguous (more on this in
deduplication). If it cannot exhaust all input, the command is unknown. If it
exhausts all input but does not find an edge node, the command is incomplete.

The parser uses an incremental strategy to build the CLI graph for a node. Each
command is parsed into its own graph, and then this graph is merged into the
overall graph. During this merge step, the parser makes a best-effort attempt
to remove duplicate nodes. If it finds a node in the overall graph that is
equal to a node in the corresponding position in the command graph, it will
intelligently merge the properties from the node in the command graph into the
already-existing node. Subgraphs are also checked for isomorphism and merged
where possible. The definition of whether two nodes are 'equal' is based on the
equality of some set of token properties; read the parser source for the most
up-to-date definition of equality.

When the parser is unable to deduplicate some complicated constructs, this
can result in two identical paths through separate parts of the graph. If
this occurs and the user enters input that matches these paths, they will
receive an 'ambiguous command' error and will be unable to execute the command.
Most of the time the parser can detect and warn about duplicate commands, but
it will not always be able to do this. Hence care should be taken before
defining a new command to ensure it is not defined elsewhere.


Command handlers
----------------
The block that follows a CLI definition is executed when a user enters input
that matches the definition. Its function signature looks like this:

int (*func) (const struct cmd_element *, struct vty *, int, struct cmd_token *[]);

The first argument is the command definition struct. The last argument is an
ordered array of tokens that correspond to the path taken through the graph,
and the argument just prior to that is the length of the array.

The arrangement of the token array has changed from the prior incarnation of
the CLI system. In the old system, missing arguments were padded with NULLs so
that the same parts of a command would show up at the same indices regardless
of what was entered. The new system does not perform such padding and therefore
it is generally _incorrect_ to assume consistent indices in this array. As a
simple example:

Command definition:
```
  command [foo] <bar|baz>
```

User enters:
```
  command foo bar
```

Array:
```
  [0] -> command
  [1] -> foo
  [2] -> bar
```

User enters:
```
  command baz
```

Array:
```
  [0] -> command
  [1] -> baz
```



Command abbreviation & matching priority
----------------------------------------
As in the prior implementation, it is possible for users to elide parts of
tokens when the CLI matcher does not need them to make an unambiguous match.
This is best explained by example.

Command definitions:
```
  command dog cow
  command dog crow
```

User input:
```
  c d c         -> ambiguous command
  c d co        -> match "command dog cow"
```

In the new implementation, this functionality has improved. Where previously
the parser would stop at the first ambiguous token, it will now look ahead and
attempt to disambiguate based on tokens later on in the input string.

Command definitions:
```
  show ip bgp A.B.C.D
  show ipv6 bgp X:X::X:X
```

User enters:
```
  s i b 4.3.2.1         -> match "show ip bgp A.B.C.D"
  s i b ::e0            -> match "show ipv6 bgp X:X::X:X"
```

Previously both of these commands would be ambiguous since 'i' does not
explicitly select either 'ip' or 'ipv6'. However, since the user later provides
a token that matches only one of the commands (an IPv4 or IPv6 address) the
parser is able to look ahead and select the appropriate command. This has some
implications for parsing the argv*[] that is passed to the command handler.

Now consider a command definition such as:
```
  command <foo|VAR>
```

'foo' only matches the string 'foo', but 'VAR' matches any input, including
'foo'. Who wins? In situations like this the matcher will always choose the
'better' match, so 'foo' will win.

Consider also:
```
  show <ip|ipv6> foo
```

User input:
```
  show ip foo
```

'ip' partially matches 'ipv6' but exactly matches 'ip', so 'ip' will win.


struct cmd_token
----------------

```
/* Command token struct. */
struct cmd_token
{
  enum cmd_token_type type;     // token type
  u_char attr;                  // token attributes
  bool allowrepeat;             // matcher allowed to match token repetitively?

  char *text;                   // token text
  char *desc;                   // token description
  long long min, max;           // for ranges
  char *arg;                    // user input that matches this token
  char *varname;                // variable name
};
```

This struct is used in the CLI graph to match input against. It is also used to
pass user input to command handler functions, as it is frequently useful for
handlers to have access to that information. When a command is matched, the
sequence of cmd_tokens that form the matching path are duplicated and placed in
order into argv*[]. Before this happens the ->arg field is set to point at the
snippet of user input that matched it.

For most nontrivial commands the handler function will need to determine which
of the possible matching inputs was entered. Previously this was done by
looking at the first few characters of input. This is now considered an
anti-pattern and should be avoided. Instead, the ->type or ->text fields for
this logic. The ->type field can be used when the possible inputs differ in
type. When the possible types are the same, use the ->text field. This field
has the full text of the corresponding token in the definition string and using
it makes for much more readable code. An example is helpful.

Command definition:
```
  command <(1-10)|foo|BAR>
```

In this example, the user may enter any one of:
  * an integer between 1 and 10
  * "foo"
  * anything at all

If the user enters "command f", then:

```
argv[1]->type == WORD_TKN
argv[1]->arg  == "f"
argv[1]->text == "foo"
```

Range tokens have some special treatment; a token with ->type == RANGE_TKN will
have the ->min and ->max fields set to the bounding values of the range.


Permutations
------------
Finally, it is sometimes useful to check all the possible combinations of input
that would match an arbitrary definition string. There is a tool in tools/
called 'permutations' that reads CLI definition strings on stdin and prints out
all matching input permutations. It also dumps a text representation of the
graph, which is more useful for debugging than anything else. It looks like
this:

```
$ ./permutations "show [ip] bgp [<view|vrf> WORD]"

show ip bgp view WORD
show ip bgp vrf WORD
show ip bgp
show bgp view WORD
show bgp vrf WORD
show bgp
```

This functionality is also built into VTY/VTYSH; the 'list permutations'
command will list all possible matching input permutations in the current CLI
node.