#SNMP Design: Discussion on Manager.Walk

OK, according to Producing Open Source Software, there should be no private conversation under the surface, so I am going to publish a few conversations between me and Steve so you can be updated.

This time, let’s start with a talk about Manager.Walk.

Steve: Crowe’s library had a ManagerSubTree. An older version of an app uses Crowe’s library. I was tasked to switch that app to use our stuff, and I don’t know how you want to deal with this. pretty much they used it in a way to see all of the print jobs in the table, and then goto the last one and return information on that index. I know we do have Walk, which returns a one dimensional list of answers, but I guess I need more help in understanding how that works and stuff.

Lex: In fact, when I started to write table related code for #SNMP, I did not refer to Mr. Crowe’s code any more, so I really don’t know how ManagerSubTree works (I will investigate it later). Therefore, I cannot easily say if #SNMP can do the same or not.

Lex: Hi now I think I can answer the question about ManagerSubTree class in Mr. Crowe’s SNMP library. Yes, although it appears like a class, the function it supports is similar to Manager.Walk in #SNMP. Manager.Walk returns a list of objects (depends on WalkMode argument), and ManagerSubTree provides the same list from its indexer or GetEnumerator() method (and it only walks in the subtree).

OK, now let’s take a look at another key difference. In ManagerSubTree, there is a fix tool to fix something against a non-compliant agent. #SNMP library does not yet have similar code and I don’t know if it is necessary.

Hope this also helps you understand the relationship between Mr. Crowe’s SNMP library and #SNMP.

Stay tuned.