NetBrain Parser is a file used to parse and extract key metrics (as known as variables) from command lines or device configurations for specific device types. The following section introduces the types and parsing methods of a parser.

Parser Types

The system provides the following types of parsers to parse data from different sources:

▪CLI Command Parser — define how to parse and extract key metrics from the outputs of a CLI command.  

▪Configuration Parser — define how to parse and extract key metrics from configuration files.

▪SNMP Parser — define how to parse and extract key metrics from the outputs of an SNMP command.

▪API Parser — define how to parse and extract key metrics from an SDN network or third-party system via rest APIs.

Parsing Methods

The system provides the following parsing methods to obtain data based on the returned command or configuration format :

Parser

Description

Example

Keyword

Parse a single-instance data from a command line or configuration.

show version

Paragraph

Parse multiple instances of the same data as long as they are in the same data format in paragraph blocks.

show interface

Table

Parse data from a table-formatted CLI command output.

show ip eigrp neighbor

Filter

Filter out a segment of data from a non-standard and verbose output.

filter EIGRP routing configuration

Script

Parse data by using Python scripts.

Version $ver

For more details on how to choose a parsing method when defining a parser, see Selecting a Parsing Method.