Using View Subroutines with a Properties Argument

The view subroutines — get_view(), get_views(), find_entity_view(), and find_entity_views() — can accept a properties argument that consists of a list of property paths for retrieval from the server.

Go to the vSphere Web Services SDK Reference for a list of properties for each server-side managed object. Property paths can be full paths, and can include nested properties. Properties do not have to be top-level managed object properties.

The following example illustrates filtering by property.

1. Populate a virtual machine view with power-state information only.

   my $vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(
          view_type => 'VirtualMachine',
          filter => { 'name' => 'foo' },
          properties => [ 'runtime.powerState' ]
          );

2. Use the view object's get_property() method.

   Note that $vm_view is an array reference, not a scalar.

   my $state = $vm_view->get_property('runtime.powerState');

3. If you are interested in subproperties of the retrieved properties, you can retrieve them.

        my $vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(
               view_type => 'VirtualMachine',
               filter => { 'name' => 'foo' },
               properties => [ 'config.hardware' ]);
        my $memsize = $vm_view->get_property('config.hardware.memoryMB');

get_property() works with fully-populated views as well. The following code fragments uses get_property to retrieve a property from a virtual machine.

my $vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(
            view_type => 'VirtualMachine',
            filter => { 'name' => 'foo' });
my $memsize = $vm_view->get_property('config.hardware.memoryMB');

The following code fragment, which retrieves the same property by traversing the tree, has the same result.

my $vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(
            view_type => 'VirtualMachine',
            filter => { 'name' => 'foo' });
my $memsize = $vm_view->config->hardware->memoryMB;

When you use a filtered view and attempt to read a property that was not retrieved from the server, the result is the same as if the property were unset.