Nested Properties and
Property Paths in Composite Data StructuresLast Updated December 16, 2024
vSphere Data objects can include properties
that are defined as composite data types, such as data objects. The embedded
data objects can also contain properties that are data objects. Properties can
nest to several levels.
For example, the following figure shows a UML
class diagram of the
VirtualMachine
managed object,
which has a
runtime
property that is defined as an
xsd:dateTime
data type.
VirtualMachine
also has a
summary
property that is a
VirtualMachineSummary
data
object. The
VirtualMachineSummary
data
object contains a
config
property that is a
VirtualMachineConfigSummary
data
object.
VirtualMachine Managed Object and Nested Properties
To refer to a nested property, use dot notation to
separate the object names in the sequence that defines the path to the
property. Your code must handle the type referenced at the end of the sequence.
For example, you can compare the property
referenced by the path
summary.config.guestId
(a string
value) to the property referenced in the path
summary.config
(the complete
VirtualMachineSummary
data
object).
The following table shows examples of property
references and the corresponding data types for some of the properties of the
VirtualMachine
managed object
shown in
Figure 1.
Reference
| Data Type
|
|---|---|
summary
| VirtualMachineSummary data object
|
summary.config
| VirtualMachineConfigSummary data object
|
summary.config.guestID
| string
|