This commit consists of:
1) Ability for the netconf client to retrieve schemas metadata from
   the netconf server
2) Ability for the netconf server to retrieve specific yang schema from
   the netconf server
3) Netconf says Happy New Year 2017

Change-Id: I6552224707607ca6cc1397f2fbf193503bb116a3
diff --git a/netconf/nc_common/__init__.py b/netconf/nc_common/__init__.py
index 7398217..e69de29 100644
--- a/netconf/nc_common/__init__.py
+++ b/netconf/nc_common/__init__.py
@@ -1,44 +0,0 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-#
-#
-# December 23 2014, Christian Hopps <chopps@gmail.com>
-#
-# Copyright (c) 2015, Deutsche Telekom AG
-#
-# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
-# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
-# You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
-#
-from __future__ import absolute_import, division, unicode_literals, print_function, nested_scopes
-from lxml.etree import register_namespace
-
-MAXSSHBUF = 16 * 1024
-NSMAP = { }
-
-
-def nsmap_add (prefix, namespace):
-    "Add a prefix namespace mapping to the modules mapping dictionary"
-    NSMAP[prefix] = namespace
-    register_namespace(prefix, namespace)
-
-
-def nsmap_update (nsdict):
-    "Add a dicitonary of prefx namespace mappings to the modules mapping dictionary"
-    NSMAP.update(nsdict)
-    for key, val in nsdict.items():
-        register_namespace(key, val)
-
-
-def qmap (key):
-    return "{" + NSMAP[key] + "}"
-
-
-# Add base spec namespace
-nsmap_add('nc', "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0")
diff --git a/netconf/nc_common/error.py b/netconf/nc_common/error.py
index 802cbe9..bb28490 100644
--- a/netconf/nc_common/error.py
+++ b/netconf/nc_common/error.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python
 #
-# Copyright 2016 the original author or authors.
+# Copyright 2017 the original author or authors.
 #
 # Adapted from https://github.com/choppsv1/netconf/error.py
 #
diff --git a/netconf/nc_common/utils.py b/netconf/nc_common/utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3af31bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/netconf/nc_common/utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+#
+# Copyright 2017 the original author or authors.
+#
+# Code adapted from https://github.com/choppsv1/netconf
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+from netconf.constants import Constants as C
+from lxml import etree
+
+ns_map = C.NS_MAP
+
+def qmap(key):
+    if ns_map.has_key(key):
+        return ''.join(['{', ns_map[key], '}'])
+
+def ns(key):
+    if ns_map.has_key(key):
+        return ns_map[key]
+
+def qname(tag):
+    try:
+        return etree.QName(tag)
+    except ValueError:
+        prefix, base = tag.split(":")
+        return etree.QName(ns(prefix), base)
+
+def elm(tag, attrib=None, **extra):
+    if attrib is None:
+        attrib = dict()
+    return etree.Element(qname(tag), attrib, **extra)
+