Extending wallaby with a python client library

In my previous post, we saw how to extend wallaby by writing Ruby classes that use a client library to extend the wallaby shell. If you’re comfortable with Ruby, this is a great way to build functionality on top of the wallaby API in an idiomatic way. However, Python programmers shouldn’t have to learn Ruby just to interact with wallaby.

The wallaby source repository now includes a Python client library to interact with a wallaby service. This library does a few things to make your life easier:

1. Raw QMF object proxies are wrapped in Python client objects.
2. Object references returned by QMF methods are automatically wrapped by client objects.
3. QMF methods that return error statuses will raise exceptions in the client library.
4. Client classes include docstrings for QMF methods.

See below for a transcript illustrating these features. Note that you’ll need to have the following packages installed to use the Python wallaby client library: Red Hat Enterprise MRG 1.3 (or the python-qmf package from a recent Fedora release) and Wallaby 0.9.18 or later (0.10.0 to access all of the features exposed through the client library).

Python 2.6.2 (r262:71600, Jan 25 2010, 18:46:47) 
[GCC 4.4.2 20091222 (Red Hat 4.4.2-20)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from qmf.console import Session
>>> import wallaby
>>> 
>>> # create a new console object
... console = Session()
>>> 
>>> # connect to the broker (on localhost:5672, by default)
... console.addBroker()
Broker connected at: localhost:5672
>>> 
>>> # find the QMF object for the wallaby service
... raw_store, = console.getObjects(_class="Store")
>>> 
>>> # wrap it up in a client object
... store = wallaby.Store(raw_store, console)
>>> 
>>> # now, interact with it!
... node = store.addNode("barney.local.")
>>> 
>>> feature = store.addFeature("Example feature")
>>> param = store.addParam("EXAMPLE_PARAM")
>>> 
>>> # most "options" arguments are indeed optional
... feature.modifyParams("ADD", {"EXAMPLE_PARAM":"example value"})
>>> 
>>> store.getDefaultGroup().modifyFeatures("ADD", ["Example feature"])
>>> 
>>> node.getConfig()
{u'WALLABY_CONFIG_VERSION': u'0', u'EXAMPLE_PARAM': u'example value'}
 
>>> # what do we get if we activate the configuration?
... help(store.activateConfiguration)
Help on method activateConfiguration in module wallaby:
 
activateConfiguration(self) method of wallaby.Store instance
    Returns a tuple consisting of:
    * A map containing an explanation of why the configuration isn't valid, or an empty map if the configuration was successfully activated.
    * A set of warnings encountered during configuration activation.
 
>>> store.activateConfiguration()
({}, [])
 
>>> node.getConfig()
{u'WALLABY_CONFIG_VERSION': u'1292513031757418', u'EXAMPLE_PARAM': u'example value'}
 
>>> # try something that will cause an error
... feature = store.addFeature("Example feature")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
  File "wallaby.py", line 404, in addFeature
    raise ClientError(result.status, result.text)
wallaby.ClientError: (67109121, u'Feature name Example feature is already taken')