<argList> Element

The <argList> element is a child of the <call>, <install>, <uninstall>, <execSubplan>, and <addSnapshot> steps. This element specifies a list of variables to be passed as arguments to the called service.

The called service declares the variables that it expects by using a <paramList> element. The variables within the <argList> and the called <paramList> need not be the same. However, for each variable in the called <paramList> that does not have a default value, a variable with the same name must be present in the <argList>, or a preflight error is raised at plan runtime. For each variable in the called <paramList> for which there is a corresponding variable in the <argList>, the value of the variable in <paramList> will obtain the value of the corresponding variable in <argList> for the duration of the execution of the called service.

Variables in <argList> that do not correspond to a variable in the called <paramList> are silently ignored. Thus, services can be redefined with additional parameters, while still ensuring backward compatibility. So, one plan could call both old and new versions of the service.

The arguments of the <argList> element are expressed as attributes. The order in which the attributes appear is not significant. The following <argList> declares two arguments, password and path:

<argList password=":[password]" path="/tmp"/>