The BEGIN-TLV keyword

Syntax

BEGIN-TLV <name>

Description

The BEGIN-TLV keyword starts a "nested" set of ATTRIBUTE definitions wwhich are all for a particular parent attribute of type tlv.

<name>: The name of the parent attribute.

The tlv must have previously been created in anref:dictionary/attribute.adoc[ATTRIBUTE] definition.

The BEGIN-TLV keyword must always be paired with a matching END-TLV keyword.

Within the context of a `BEGIN-TLV block, the numbers for each ATTRIBUTE definition are relative to the parent TLV.

Example

ATTRIBUTE Foo 2 tlv
BEGIN-TLV Foo
ATTRIBUTE Bar 1 string
END-TLV Foo

This example defines an attribute Foo.Bar, with OID 2.1.

Purpose

The BEGIN-TLV keyword exists for efficiency. It is not strictly needed, but without a BEGIN-TLV keyword, every ATTRIBUTE name would need to contain the parent attribute name, as in the following example.

Example

ATTRIBUTE Foo.bar 2.1 string

Nesting

It is possible to nest multiple BEGIN-TLV keywords, so long as each one is paired with a matching END-TLV keyword.

Example of nested BEGIN-TLV

ATTRIBUTE Foo 2 tlv
BEGIN-TLV Foo
ATTRIBUTE Bar 1 string
ATTRIBUTE Baz 2 tlv
BEGIN-TLV Baz
ATTRIBUTE Such 4 ipaddr
END-TLV Baz
END-TLV Foo

The above example is equivalent to the example below.

Example

ATTRIBUTE Foo 2 tlv
ATTRIBUTE Bar .1 string
ATTRIBUTE Baz .2 tlv
ATTRIBUTE Such .2.4 ipaddr

For short entries, it can be simpler to use the full name an OID. However, for complex dictionaries, it is almost always clearer to use BEGIN-TLV and END-TLV.