ABF console client

Revision as of 15:29, 7 May 2013

As it was written before, the new way of interaction with ABF have recently appeared: console client. ABF developers spent much effort to develop API in October. It made it possible to add lots of features to console client, but it was decided to improve the basic functionality first. So, what is ABF-Console-Client needed for? Let’s take a look at package life-cycle. User wants to create (or get existing) project, modify it, build and publish. Let’s start in order.

Clone git repository

project name is assumed to be known. User have to open ABF web page, search for a project, go to a project page, copy git URL, clone repository using git. However, it can be done easier. Just execute «abf get PROJECT», where PROJECT is a project name with owner (owner/proj_name). Owner can be omitted, default group will be used.

Project modification

When you’ve got files in your project modified, you can execute «abf put -m MSG». It will execute «git add --all», «git commit -m MSG», «git push». Additionally, all the source archives have to be uploaded to File-Store and .abf.yml file have to modified. It’s a routine work, especially when you have to build a hundred projects a day. Console client will do it for you automatically.

Create a build-task

To do it, you have to open an ABF web page, click some check-boxes and click "Start build". It looks like a few work to do. But if you have to build hundreds packages a day, you can do it much faster using console client, especially if you write your own script executing console client.

Building process

To check the current building status, you don’t have to check web page anymore. Just execute «abf buildstatus ID» to get a short summary. ID can be omitted and the status for the last built project. It will be described later in detail.

Publication

«abf publish ID» will do it easily.

As you can see, console client makes maintainer’s work easier a bit. That’s why we work hard to improve the tool and to satisfy maintainers' needs.

The list of features added in the last version:

• ABF client caches the locations of git-repositories in your system when it accesses them. If you have already got lots of repositories, you can cache their locations at one go. Just run «abf locate update-recursive -d PATH», where PATH is a directory with repositories. For what purpose should one know the location of every repository? For example, user can now execute «abfcd PROJECT». You can just learn the location of any project by executing «abf locate -p PROJECT». Console client will be able to move files not only among the project branches, but also among projects.

• First version of console client had only got the basic version of bash autocomplete script. Now it autocompletes almost everything: option names, git branches, build and save-to repositories for «abf build» (the latter requires a project name to be specified, so you have to type the --project/-p before --save-to-repository/-s). As a result, it’s much easier to work with console client, because you don’t have to type the long repository name or remember the list of possible variants. Sometimes autocompletion works long (about 1 second), but the results are getting cached and the process is speeding up.

• The new command, «abf clean» appeared. It scans the spec and .abf.yml files and current directory and shows problems found. If some source or patch file can not be found (or resolved via URL or .abf.yml) — it prints an error message. It also prints warnings, for example, if a file is specified in .abf.yml and in spec file. The test is automatically executed while creating a build task from the current directory and prevents a build task from being sent. This check can be turned off by option --skip-spec-check.

• When user creates a new build task, its ID will be stored and associated with a project. «abf buildstatus» will print the summary for the last build task. If project was specified (or you are in a project directory) — it will print information about the last build task for this project.

• About work with API. The number of unnecessary API calls have been significantly decreased. The fact is that when you, for example, requests information about repository, API returns some particular information about platform too. The older version could only use the ID of this platform and downloaded the full information about platform by one more API call. Now this information is stored in platform object that is marked as 'stub'. When you try to access a field that is not loaded but have to present in this class — a new API call will be made and information will be retrieved. As a result, the first console client call doesn’t results in dozens of API calls anymore.

• One more interesting feature — work with (HTTP ETag) to cache the results of API calls with autovalidation. It results in speeding the process up without a risk of working with the outdated data. ABF is not well configured now to fully support this technology, but it’s going to process requests for cached data fast. It will also stop increasing a counter of API calls (every IP is limited to 500 API calls per hour).

As you can see, the ABF console client development continues. All your feedback (either positive or negative), suggestions and regards are welcome.