rename symbols

[Ondrej Zajicek]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 06:57:01AM +0100, Maria Matejka via Bird-users wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> > For example I may want to refactor the naming scheme for
> > protocols/tables in my bird config. But when I apply the new config with
> > the new names, such renamed protocols will be recreated or restarted,
> > which may be undesired. So if I could rename protocols/tables in advance
> > and then load the new config, I can hope than no changes would be found
> > and the there would be no interruptions.
> 
> What I was thinking about some time ago, was not this kind of "renaming from
> CLI" but a special clause "renamed XYZ to ABC" which could be put at the end
> (!) of the new config. This would solve the problem with rewriting the
> symbol in-place which is ugly.

Hello

I thing that the most elegant way how to handle renaming of objects
during reconfiguration is to allow multiple names / aliases. There could
be be more symbols pointing to given object (but the object points back
to its primary name).

Reconfiguration to rename objects could be done in two steps - in the
first step, the user would add alias for the new name.  In the second step,
the old name would be removed.

-- 
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

Ondrej 'Santiago' Zajicek (email: santiago at crfreenet.org)
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"To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so."