Ceph

the problem lies in pybind/ceph_argparse.py, function 'find_cmd_target()'.

The following snippet takes a relaxed approach at determining the target of a command, with the function returning

'mon', ''

in the end in the absence of a correct signature match.

    sig = parse_funcsig(['tell', {'name':'target', 'type':'CephName'}])
    try:
        valid_dict = validate(childargs, sig, partial=True)
    except ArgumentError:
        pass
    else:
        if len(valid_dict) == 2:
            # revalidate to isolate type and id
            name = CephName()
            # if this fails, something is horribly wrong, as it just
            # validated successfully above
            name.valid(valid_dict['target'])
            return name.nametype, name.nameid

For instance, a properly formed 'tell' will be correctly parsed by 'validate()':

(Pdb) validate('tell mon.* health'.split(), sig, partial=True)
{'prefix': 'tell', 'target': 'mon.*'}

but an incorrect 'tell' will silently fail:

(Pdb) validate('tell health'.split(), sig, partial=True)
{'prefix': 'tell'}
(Pdb) validate('tell foo health'.split(), sig, partial=True)
{'prefix': 'tell'}

Tightening the requirements of 'validate()' with 'partial=False' will catch the erroneous target format:

(Pdb) validate('tell foo health'.split(), sig, partial=False)
*** ArgumentFormat: CephName: no . in foo
(Pdb) validate('tell health'.split(), sig, partial=False)
*** ArgumentFormat: CephName: no . in health

but will result in an ArgumentError exception on properly formed commands:

(Pdb) validate('tell mon.* health'.split(), sig, partial=False)
*** ArgumentError: unused arguments: ['health']

Although this exception is handled by the 'try' block, it's not in a way that indicates that it was the meant use case for the except clause.