Mastering Python Networking

Screen scraping versus API structured output

Imagine a common scenario where we need to log into the device and make sure all the interfaces on the devices are in an up/up state (both status and protocol are showing as up). For the human network engineers getting into a Cisco NX-OS device, it is simple enough to issue the show IP interface brief command to easily tell from the output which interface is up:

    nx-osv-2# show ip int brief    IP Interface Status for VRF "default"(1)    Interface IP Address Interface Status    Lo0 192.168.0.2 protocol-up/link-up/admin-up    Eth2/1 10.0.0.6 protocol-up/link-up/admin-up    nx-osv-2#

The line break, white spaces, and the first line of the column title are easily distinguished from the human eye. In fact, they are ...