type

Table of Contents

Prototype: type(var, detail)

Return type: string

Description: Returns a variables type description.

Arguments:

  • var: string - Variable identifier - in the range: .*
  • detail: - Enable detailed type decription - one of
    • true
    • false
    • yes
    • no
    • on
    • off

This function returns a variables type description as a string. The function expects a variable identifier as the first argument var. An optional second argument detail may be used to enable detailed description. When set to "true" the returned string comes in a two word format including type and subtype. This lets us easily differentiate between policy- and data primitives. Argument detail defaults to "false" when not specified.

If argument var is not a valid variable identifier, the function returns "none" or "policy none" based on whether the detail argument is set to "false" or "true" respectively.

The following table demonstrates the strings you can expect to be returned with different combinations of the arguments type and detail.

type detail return
string false string
string true policy string
int false int
int true policy int
real false real
real true policy real
slist false slist
slist true policy slist
ilist false ilist
ilist true policy ilist
rlist false rlist
rlist true policy rlist
data object false data
data object true data object
data array false data
data array true data array
data string false data
data string true data string
data int false data
data int true data int
data real false data
data real true data real
data boolean false data
data boolean true data boolean
data null false data
data null true data null
undefined false none
undefined true policy none

Example:

body common control
{
      bundlesequence => { "example" };
}

bundle agent example
{
  vars:
      "foo"
        data => '{ "bar": true, "baz": [1, 2, 3] }';

      "_foo" string => type("foo", "true");
      "_foobar" string => type("foo[bar]", "false");
      "_foobaz" string => type("foo[baz]", "true");

      "a" string => "hello";
      "b" int => "123";
      "c" rlist => { "1.1", "2.2", "3.3" };

      "_a" string => type("a");
      "_b" string => type("b", "true");
      "_c" string => type("c", "false");

  reports:
      "'foo' is of type '$(_foo)' (detail)";
      "'foo[bar]' is of type '$(_foobar)' (no detail)";
      "'foo[baz]' is of type '$(_foobaz)' (detail)";

      "'a' is of type '$(_a)' (no detail)";
      "'b' is of type '$(_b)' (detail)";
      "'c' is of type '$(_c)' (no detail)";
}

Output:

R: 'foo' is of type 'data object' (detail)
R: 'foo[bar]' is of type 'data' (no detail)
R: 'foo[baz]' is of type 'data array' (detail)
R: 'a' is of type 'string' (no detail)
R: 'b' is of type 'policy int' (detail)
R: 'c' is of type 'rlist' (no detail)

History:

  • Introduced in 3.18.0