[Nagiosplug-devel] Nagios::Plugin api

[John P. Rouillard]

In message <20060901212044.GA22904 at openfusion.com.au>,
Gavin Carr writes:

>On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 10:29:56AM +0100, Ton Voon wrote:
>> On 30 Aug 2006, at 21:04, Vonnahme, Nathan wrote:
>> 
>> >I like that, it is more intuitive.  Maybe it should default to UNKNOWN
>> >though-- you should explicitly throw CRITICAL or WARNING if it's an
>> >expected problem (the thing you're checking is down/excessive), and  
>> >just
>> >plain die() (which would return UNKNOWN) if it's something that keeps
>> >you from checking, like if a file your check script needs isn't there.
>> 
>> Agreed. UNKNOWN is a better default.
>
>Ok - default to UNKNOWN.
>
>> >What about even overloading the die and end handlers like this (I may
>> >not have it quite right... and you'd have to do it in the check  
>> >script,
>> >not the module) ?
>> 
>> I like the idea of overloading die - keeps it v simple - but only if  
>> it doesn't need to be specified at the plugin script (eg, can we get  
>> it automatically just by use Nagios::Plugin?).
>> 
>> Also, does that mean the object will return the data? Or all the  
>> setup stuff is class data?
>
>Overloading die is nice, but it's reasonably unexpected from a user
>point of view. I wonder if we should make Nagios::Plugin work something
>like File::Spec does: by default, nothing is exported into the user's
>environment, and everything is called via class or object methods e.g.
>
>  Nagios::Plugin->die( 'bad result' );
>  $np->exit( 'everything ok' );
>
>Then you have an alternative functional interface if you want to use
>exported/exportable functions instead (including overriding die, for
>instance), like Nagios::Plugin::Functions (cf. File::Spec::Functions):
>
>  use Nagios::Plugin::Functions;
>
>  die( $failure, CRITICAL );


Why use die at all? It is some attempt to make current programs using die
return something useful?

Why not use nagios_exit("msg", $UNKNOWN) or some such. Overloading is
nice if you understand it, but I see a lot of people making plugins
that have only a bare grasp of programming. I think overloading die is
just going to bring problems. A user does a google for die to see
how to use it. Does s/he get info about the overloaded function?

On the other hand if they google for nagios_exit or some such they
have a much better chance of finding useful info and examples.

				-- rouilj
John Rouillard
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