[Open-scap] Re: OVAL API questions

[Tomas Heinrich]

On 04/16/2009 04:36 PM, David Niemoller wrote:
> Each syschar corresponds to one object.  Because a single object may be 
> decomposed into subcomponent objects using a "set", the probe function 
> will return as many syschar structures as there are component objects.  
> The unsettled part of this pattern is that a set also contains state 
> references which don't really fit into this context.

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense.

> It may be that the probe API as it is currently defined may be at too 
> low a level.   It may reflect more implementation detail than is 
> appropriate for how the API will be used to generate OVAL results.

It would be useful to have a way to probe all the objects at once. Being 
able to do something like

   load_oval_definitions()
   probe_object_model()
   export_characteristics()

would be nice.

Tomas