Fragment modification of routing control functions

A network device that provides packet forwarding services, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a command line interface configured, when executing on the one or more processors, to:
• obtain a command, for updating a routing control function stored in a database of the network device, wherein the command specifies positional information in the routing control function,
• identify a portion of the routing control function based on the positional information,
• identify a syntactic style associated with the portion of the routing control function,
• make a modification to the routing control function stored in the database, wherein the modification is based on:
• the command,
• the portion of the routing control function, and
• the syntactic style, and
• update operation of the network device based on the modified routing control function;
• and
• a route manager configured, when executing on the one or more processors, to process a route for forwarding packets received by the network device based on the modified routing control function, after the operation of the network device is updated, to obtain a processed route for forwarding the packets.

A method for modifying a fragment of a routing control function stored in a network device that provides packet forwarding services, the method comprising:

• obtaining a command, for updating the routing control function, specifying a modification to the routing control function;
• determining that the command can be executed based on classes included in the command and the routing control function;
• identifying a portion of the routing control function specified in the modification;
• identifying a syntactic style associated with the portion of the routing control function;
• and
• making a modification to the routing control function to obtain a modified routing control function, wherein the modification is based on:
• the command,
• the portion of the routing control function, and
• the syntactic style;
• and
• committing the modification to a data structure storing the routing control function to update an operation of the network device,
• wherein a route for forwarding packets of the network device is processed based on the modified routing control function, after the operation of the network device is updated, to obtain a processed route for forwarding the packets.