Optional Qualifiers

Optional qualifiers address recurring situations not common to all CIM-compliant implementations, which are not required to interpret these qualifiers. Optional qualifiers are provided in the specification to avoid random user-defined qualifiers that might occur in these recurring situations.

Delete

Data type: boolean

Applies to: associations, references

For associations, indicates whether the qualified association must be deleted if any of the objects referenced in the association are deleted and if the respective object referenced in the association is qualified with IfDeleted. The default is FALSE.

For references, this qualifier indicates whether the referenced object must be deleted if the association containing the reference is deleted and qualified with IfDeleted, or if any of the objects referenced in the association are deleted and the respective object referenced in the association is qualified with IfDeleted.

Usage: Applications must track associations and references marked with the Delete qualifier and delete the association or reference appropriately. If an object in the association has been deleted but is not marked with IfDeleted, then the association should not be deleted.

This usage rule must be verified when the CIM security model is defined.

Expensive

Data type: boolean

Applies to: properties, references, classes, associations, methods

Indicates whether the implied action requires extensive computation. The default is FALSE.

IfDeleted

Data type: boolean

Applies to: associations and references

Indicates whether all objects within an association that is qualified by Delete must be deleted if the referenced object or the association is deleted. The default is FALSE.

Indexed

Data type: boolean

Applies to: properties, methods

Indicates whether a class property should be indexed. When applied to properties in classes hosted by the repository, this only has the meaning of creating (at the time of class creation) a fast secondary query lookup for that property.

Only the value TRUE (default) is allowed.

Invisible

Data type: boolean

Applies to: associations, properties, methods, references, classes

Indicates whether the association is defined only for internal purposes (for example, for definition of dependency semantics) and should not be displayed (for example, in maps). The default is FALSE.

Large

Data type: boolean

Applies to: properties, classes

Indicates whether the property or class requires a large amount of storage space. The default is FALSE.

Not_Null

Data type: boolean

Applies to: properties

Indicates whether a class property cannot take on a value of NULL (VT_NULL). Only the value TRUE (default) is allowed.

If this qualifier is specified, WMI does not allow creation of instances with the property set to NULL, and NULL properties return the WBEM_E_ILLEGAL_NULL error code.

Note that the Key and Indexed qualifiers already imply this behavior.

Provider

Data type: string

Applies to: Any

Indication that the schema element is dynamic and thus populated by a provider. The default is NULL. This qualifier is an implementation-specific handle to the instrumentation.

Experimental

Data type: boolean

Applies to: any

Indicates that the specified element has been proposed to be a part of a future release of the CIM Schemas, but is not yet part of the standard Schema. Instead, the element is available for users to experiment, implement, and provide feedback on. Based on feedback, the element may added to the standard as presented, modified, or removed. The default is FALSE. An implementation does not have to support an element with this qualifier.

Syntax

Data type: string

Applies to: properties, references, methods, parameters

Specific type assigned to a data item. The default is NULL.

Usage: You must use the SyntaxType qualifier with this qualifier.

SyntaxType

Data type: string

Applies to: properties, references, methods, parameters

Format of the Syntax qualifier. The default is NULL.

Usage: You must use the Syntax qualifier with this qualifier.

TriggerType

Data type: string

Applies to: classes, properties, methods, associations, indications, references

Circumstances under which a trigger is fired. The default is NULL. The trigger types vary by meta-model construct.

For classes and associations, the legal values are:

Create

Delete

Update

Access

For properties and references, the legal values are: Update and Access.

For methods, the legal values are Before and After.

For indications, the legal value is Thrown.

UnknownValues

Data type: string array

Applies to: properties

Set of values indicating that the value of the associated property is unknown (the property cannot be considered as having a valid or meaningful value). The default is NULL.

The conventions and restrictions used for defining unknown values are the same as those applicable to the ValueMap qualifier.

Note that this qualifier cannot be overridden. It is unreasonable to permit a subclass to treat a value as a known value when it is treated as unknown by some parent class.

UnsupportedValues

Data type: string array

Applies to: properties

Set of values indicating that the value of the associated property is unsupported (the property cannot be considered as having a valid or meaningful value). The default is NULL.

The conventions and restrictions used for defining unsupported values are the same as those applicable to the ValueMap qualifier.

Note this qualifier cannot be overridden. It is unreasonable to permit a subclass to treat a value as a supported value that is treated as unknown by some parent class.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client
Windows Vista
Minimum supported server
Windows Server 2008

See also

WMI Qualifiers

Adding a Qualifier