Copper DSL

Basics

Copper DSL is a simple language that’s focused on fetching values from configuration files and checking their validity. It has built-in functionality to deal with IP Addresses, Semantic versioning of components and basic string manipulation.

Copper files

Copper files contain the Copper DSL script. They have text files and have a .cop extension. You can use any text editor to edit them.

Copper Syntax Highlighting

There is an extension for VisualStudio Code that provides syntax highlighting for Copper files. This extension is under active development and doesn’t support Copper DSL’s full syntax.

Rules

A rule is like a test you would like to run against your configuration file. Just like code unit tests, it’s better to keep the rules focused on one specific area of the configuration file and give then relevant names. A Copper file can contain as many rules as you like.

Name

A rule must have a name. Names should begin with a letter and can contain any alphanumerical characters.

Action

A rule must have an Action. Action is what should happen if the rule fails: An ensure action means failure of the rule will fail the validation. A warn action means a warning is shown next to the failed rule but the validations will pass.

Condition

A condition is a boolean logic that should be true for the rule to pass.

Syntax

rule NAME (warn | ensure) {
	CONDITION
}

Example

rule foo ensure {
	1 = 1
}

Defines a rule called foo which ensures the statement 1 = 1 returns true

Variables

You can define variables in Copper files as a way to avoid repeating the same things over and over again. For example, you can keep your the valid range of ports in a variable and use that variable in different rules. In Copper DSL, variables are more like constants in other languages and cannot be changed once set.

Syntax

var VARIABLE = VALUE

Example

var foo = 1
var bar = "hello"
var valid_ports = (8000..9000)

Using variables in a rule

rule bar warn {
	8050 in valid_ports == true
}

Comments

Copper files can be commented. Copper supports the Java comment syntax:

rule foo warn { // this is a single inline comment
	1 = 1 /* this is a single line block comment */
}

/* we are going to comment this part off
rule bar ensure {
	false = true
}*/

Comparisons

The condition inside of a rule is usually made up of a value compared against another value. The result of this comparison is either true or false.

The comparison operation can be one of the following:

Condition logic

Comparisons can be combined with and and or to make up more complex conditions.

Example

rule ComplexRulesAreUs warn {
	2 > 1 and 3 == 3 or 2 != 8 and
	8 in [1,2,3,4]
}

Base Data types

Copper DSL supports the following data types:

Number

A number is integer or decimal.

Example

var my_int = 12
rule foo ensure {
	my_int > 11.43
}

String

Strings are wrapped in double quotes ".

Example

var a_string = "foo"

Strings have the following attributes:

count

Returns the length of the string: "foo".count will return 3.

gsub

Replaces text in the string using the regular expression pattern given.

For example "abc".gsub("b", "!") will return "a!c".

at

Returns the character at the given index: "abc".at(2) returns "b".

split

Splits the string into an array: "foo/bar/baz".split("/") returns ["foo", "bar", "baz"].

Array

Arrays can contain any number of values. Arrays can hold values of different types. An array is wrapped in [ and ] and each item is separated by a ,.

Example

var my_array = [1,2,3,4]

Arrays have the following attributes:

count

Returns the number of items in the array: [1,2,3].count will return 3.

first

Returns the first item of the array: ["foo","bar",45].first will return "foo".

last

Returns the last item of the array: ["foo","bar",45].first will return 45.

at

Returns the item at the given index: [1, "item 2", "third item", 4].at(2) returns "item 2".

contains

Returns true if the given item can be found in the array: [1,2,"foo"].contains(2) will return true.

unique

Removes duplicates from the array and returns a new array: [1,2,3,2,1].unique will return [1,2,3]

extract

Runs each item of a string only array through a regular expression and returns the item with the given index of the regexp:

["name1:tag1", "name2:tag2", "name3:tag3"].extract(".*:(.*)", 1) will return ["tag1", "tag2", "tag3"]. The number 1 in this case refers to the regexp group.

Another example

["path1/image1:tag1", "path2/image2:tag2"].extract(".*\/(.*):.*", 2) will return ["image1", "image2", "image3"].

as

Converts each element of an array into a different data type. For example this can be used to convert an array of strings into Image data type.

["quay.io/mysql:1.2.3", "ubuntu:3.2.1"].as(:image) returns an array of Image data type (see below).

pick

Returns an array by picking an attributes off of each item of the array. For example this can be used to pick the tag attribute of an array of Image.

The example below returns the length of each element of an array:

["a", "xo", "foo"].pick(:count) returns [1, 2, 3]

pick takes in the name of the attribute to pick in the form of a : followed by the attribute name. For example to pick the tag attribute you can use pick(:tag).

Equality

You can use = or == to compare two arrays. This will return true if both arrays contain the same items but ignores the ordering of the items. For example:

[1,2,3] == [2,3,1] while [1,2,3] != [1,2,3,4].

Inclusion

You can use the in comparison for arrays: 1 in [1,2,3] is true and "foo" in ["bar", "fuzz"] is false.

Range

Range contains all the numbers between two numbers. Ranges are wrapped in ( and ) with .. between the low and the high numbers. Range is inclusive of both ends.

Example

var the_range = (1..10)

contains

Returns true if the given item can be found in the range: (1..10).contains(1) will return true.

Inclusion

You can use the in comparison for ranges: 10 in (1..10) is true and 13 in (23..45) is false.

Complex data types

Copper DSL supports a growing set of configuration specific data types. Currently this includes the following:

IPAddress

An IPAddress can hold an IP address and/or subnet. You can use IPAddress to check various things about an IPAddress, like it’s range, inclusion of other IP addresses, its class and more.

Example

var internal = ipaddress("62.0.0.0/24")
var front_end = ipaddress("62.0.2.45")

IPAddress has the following attributes:

first

Returns the first IP address in a range: ipaddress("10.0.0.0/24").first will return ipaddress("10.0.0.1")

last

Returns the last IP address in a range: ipaddress("10.0.0.0/24").last will return ipaddress("10.0.0.254")

full_address

Returns the IP address and the prefix: ipaddress("10.0.0.1").full_address will return "10.0.0.1/32"

address

Returns the IP address without the prefix: ipaddress("172.16.10.1/24").address will return "172.16.10.1"

netmask

Returns the IP netmask: ipaddress("10.0.0.0/8").netmask will return "255.0.0.0"

octets

Returns an array of IP address octets: ipaddress("172.16.10.1").octets will return [172, 16, 10, 1]

prefix

Returns the IP address prefix without the address: ipaddress("172.16.10.1/24").prefix will return 8

is_network

Returns true if the given IP address is a network address. ipaddress("10.0.0.0/24").is_network will return true while ipaddress("10.0.0.1/32").is_network returns false.

is_loopback

Returns true if the given IP address is a local loopback address. ipaddress("127.0.0.1").is_loopback will return true.

is_multicast

Returns true if the given IP address is a multicast address. ipaddress("224.0.0.1/32").is_multicast will return true.

is_class_a

Returns true if the given IP address is a class A IP address. ipaddress("10.0.0.1/24").is_class_a will return true.

Inclusion

Inclusion of an IP address in a network IP range can be checked using the in comparison. For example ipaddress("10.1.1.32") in ipaddress("10.1.1.0/24") returns true.

is_class_b

Returns true if the given IP address is a class A IP address. ipaddress("172.16.10.1/24").is_class_b will return true.

is_class_c

Returns true if the given IP address is a class A IP address. ipaddress("192.168.1.1/30").is_class_c will return true.

Semver

Semver holds and parses a string as a Semantic version. This allows support of semantic versioning and checks.

Example

var mysql_version = semver("6.5.0")
var web_server = semver("1.2.4-pre")

major

Returns the major part of the version number: semver("6.5.7").major returns "6".

minor

Returns the minor part of the version number: semver("6.5.7").major returns "5".

patch

Returns the patch part of the version number: semver("6.5.7").major returns "7".

build

Returns the build part of the version number if available: semver("3.7.9-pre.1+revision.15723").major returns "revision.15623".

pre

Returns the pre part of the version number if available: semver("3.7.9-pre.1+revision.15723").major returns "pre.1".

satisfies

Checks if a semver satisfies a Pessimistic version comparison: semver("1.6.5").satisfies("~> 1.5") returns true.

Comparison

You can use <, >, =, ==, <=, >= and != comparisons between two semvers.

Image

Image holds a Docker image path and lets you access its different parts. It also understands some of the particular attributes of docker images (like no registry name means DockerHub or no tag means latest).

For example, you can parse a string containing an image name to an Image like this:

var i = image("quay.io/cloud66/mysql:5.6.1") this will let you access the image name constituents:

i.registry or i.tag. The Image type, combined with as and pick will make a powerful tool for inspecting images used in a configuration file.

registry

Returns the registry name of the image. It will return index.docker.io if no registry is available in the image name.

name

Returns the name of the image. It will append library/ to the beginning of the image name if no namespace is available on the image name (DockerHub image names). For example, ubuntu:1.2.3 will return library/ubuntu as name.

tag

Returns the tag of the image. It will return latest if no tag is available on the image. For example mysql will return latest as the tag.

registry_url

Returns the URL for the registry, including the scheme. For example, quay.io/ubuntu:1.2.3 returns https://quay.io as registry_url.

fqin

Returns the Fully Qualified Image Name. This includes the scheme. For example ubuntu will return https://index.docker.io/library/ubuntu:latest.

Type conversion and parsing

In most cases, values read from a configuration file are strings. In order for them to be usable with Copper DSL’s complex data types, you can read them as different types using the as function.

As function takes in a type name which is a : followed by the type name. For example to convert a string into a Semver use :semver in the as function: "1.2.3".as(:semver)

Example

Here, we are assuming the value of the `mysql_version` variable is a string `"5.6.7"`:

mysql_version.as(:semver).satisfies("~> 5.6")

Accessing configuration filename

The full name of the configuration file used in a check is available in the Copper DSL as filename. filename is a Filename data type with the following attributes:

path

Returns the path to the configuration file (excluding the filename). For example samples/test.yml returns samples.

name

Returns the filename of the configuration file (excluding the path). For example samples/test.yml returns test.

ext

Returns the file extension of the configuration file (including the leading .). For example samples/test.yml returns .yml.

full_name

Returns the full filename of the configuration file. For example samples/test.yml returns samples/test.yml.

expanded_path

Returns the full expanded file path of the configuration file. For example samples/test.yml will return (depending on the absolute location of the file) something like /Users/john/projects/tests/kubernetes/samples/test.yml.

Reading from configuration files

Copper DSL uses JSONPath format to read values from a configuration file. For any configuration file format, the content is first read and converted in to JSON which makes it possible to use JSONPath to find nodes and attributes in the configuration file.

The fetch function accepts the JSONPath and returns an array of all matching nodes and attributes in the configuration.

This is a YAML configuration file used in the following examples

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  namespace: foobar
  name: foo-svc
  annotations:
    cloud66.com/snapshot-uid: 123-456-789
    cloud66.com/snapshot-gitref: abcd
  labels:
    app: foo
    tier: bar
spec:
  type: NodePort
  ports:
  - port: 8080
    targetPort: 8090
  - port: 8100
    targetPort: 8100
  - port: 5000
  selector:
    app: foo
    tier: bar

To fetch the value of type under spec (which is NodePort in the file above), we can use the following JSONPath format:

fetch("$.spec.type") // will return ["NodePort"]

To return all the targetPort values under spec.port you can use attribute selectors:

fetch("$.spec.ports..targetPort") // will return [8090, 8100]

To return the value of targetPort for the 8080 port (8090 in the example above) you can use the filters:

fetch("$.spect.ports[?(@.port == 8080)]") // will return [8090]

JSONPath syntax

You can use the JSONPath reference as a syntax guideline. Copper DSL implements a subset of JSONPath, listed below. You can also use the Online JSONPath evaluator for testing or refer to the debugging section below:

Write the value of variable `mysql_version` to the console

Write the result of a comparison to the console

Write the result of a fetch to console

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