How does the tailf:action extension differ from the yang rpc statement?

[martmitc]

As per the title, trying to understand is these are equivalent

rpc doSomething {

    input {

      leaf action {

        type string;

      }

    }

    output {

      leaf dummy {

        type string;

      }

    }

  }

and

tailf:action doSomething {

    input {

      leaf action {

        type string;

      }

    }

    output {

      leaf dummy {

        type string;

      }

    }

  }

[mmalysz · Accepted solution]

The difference is that rpc is defined at the top level in the data model. That is how YANG RFC defines it. Now tailf:action is an extension that allows you to put rpc into any level in the data model.

[martmitc]

Thanks for the clarification, so any northbound system interacting with a device using the tailf:action would also need to support this behaviour, as it is not just something internal to the device implementation.

[mmalysz]

Well for the NB system it is matter of just providing a right context. For example in case of RESTCONF the only difference will be the URL. In both cases it will a POST method and the URL will differ - it will be simply a path to the action point

[martmitc]

I was thinking more in the case of the northbound using NETCONF, as agree it doesn't really make much difference for RESTCONF.

[Jan Lindblad]

Yes, the agent would need to know what tailf:action is in order to use it. Note that in YANG 1.1 a new keyword "action" has been defined (without the tailf: prefix) as an alternative to rpc, and works the same as tailf:action. Now that all major toolchains support YANG 1.1, there is no reason to use YANG 1.0 for any new work.