#SNMP Design: Weaker Validation on Table OID

Maybe I should not have designed Manager.GetTable that way, isn’t it? The trouble I got is more. So how to change the original design at this moment? Take a look at source code of Change Set 14707, and you will see my decision.

The Old Design

Once upon a time (in this April), there was no validation in GetTable. But I added a basic case as soon as I noticed the necessity. This old validation required the OID passed to GetTable could be translated to textual form and ended with Table. It is such a natural rule that all tables defined in standard MIB documents follow it.

The Problem It Brings

The old validation is too strong because not all OID can be validated like this. For example, if you try to access a table defined inside a private MIB document and probably #SNMP fails to parse this document, you are stuck! Sorry for the inconvenience.

After hearing of this critical bug, I admitted that I made a mistake when closing Issue and a solution must be presented as soon as possible.

The New Implementation

I think a weaker validation is preferred before I fix all possible issues in the parser. Thus, a new rule is added to the validation,

• If the OID cannot be translated to textual form, it is assumed as a valid table OID (hi, this means you have to validate it yourself!).
• If the textual form is available, this validation falls back to the old design. Only if the names ended with Table are valid.

Hope you like this change. Stay tuned.