Immediate termination of policy functions

A method in a network device for evaluating a routing policy, the method comprising:

• a policy directive invoking a first child function at a point of application in the routing policy, wherein program execution transfers to program instructions in the first child function;
• the first child function invoking a second child function in the first child function, wherein program execution transfers to program instructions in the second child function;
• and
• in response to executing a program control flow statement of a first kind in the second child function, bypassing program instructions in the first child function to transfer program execution from the second child function to a location in the routing policy that follows the point of application without executing program instructions in the first child function.

A network device comprising:

• one or more computer processors;
• and
• a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for controlling the one or more computer processors to execute a routing policy, wherein the instructions control the one or more computer processors to:
• transfer execution of the routing policy from executing a first policy directive in the routing policy to executing to executing program instructions in a first function specified in the first policy directive, wherein the first function includes a function call to a second function;
• transfer execution of the routing policy from executing program instructions in the first function to executing program instructions in the second function in response to encountering the function call, wherein the second function includes an EXIT statement;
• and
• transfer execution of the routing policy from executing program instructions in the second function to executing a second policy directive in the routing policy that follows the first policy directive in response to encountering the EXIT statement, without executing any program instructions in the first function.