Why the `policy-options prefix-list` do not shows hierarchy?

Question

Why the policy-options prefix-list do not shows hierarchy?

In a Juniper Router,

I show policy-options, there shows:

prefix-list snmp-permit {
    1.1.1.0/24;
}

prefix-list icmp-permit {
    2.2.2.0/24
}

But why it do not show like this:

prefix-list {
    snmp-permit {
        1.1.1.0/24;
    }
    icmp-permit {
        2.2.2.0/24
    }
}

Answer 1

It's just the way the Juniper config is built. Underneath it's all XML and there you have multiple prefix-lists on one level which each have their name as <name> tag on the level below (a child element in XML). Your lists would be:

<prefix-list>
  <name>snmp-permit</name>
  <prefix-list-item>
    <name>1.1.1.0/24</name>
  <prefix-list-item>
</prefix-list>
<prefix-list>
  <name>icmp-permit</name>
  <prefix-list-item>
    <name>2.2.2.0/24</name>
  <prefix-list-item>
</prefix-list>

The CLI then displays this as text so you have multiple prefix-list <name> entries. It's just the way the XML to text parser is written.

You can see this on the CLI by adding | display xml to a command, like show configuration policy-options | display xml.