moulinette/CONTRIBUTE.md

What a lovely idea ! :)

Few points though:

Dafuq is dat moulinette ?

We decided to regroup all YunoHost related operations into a single program called "moulinette". This will allow us to entirely manipulate our YunoHost instances through a wonderful CLI. Additionally the web interface will just have to call the same "moulinette" functions. Magic power inside :p

Important files

• parse_args File executed on function calling - i.e ./parse_args user create. Will be renamed yunohost when packaged.
• yunohost.py Contains all YunoHost functions likely to be shared between moulinette files. Also contains service connections classes (erk). Refers to "Service connections" paragraph.
• yunohost_*.py Files containing action functions. * is the category: user, domain, firewall, etc.

How to add a function ?

1. Check if the action is already in the action_map dictionary in the parse_args file. If not, follow the dict documentation to add it.
2. Also check if the file yunohost_category.py is created in the working tree. If not, just create it (you may take example of yunohost_user.py file).
3. Add your function category_action() in this file - i.e user_create()

Note: category_action() takes one parameter plus an optional one : args and connections if connections were set. args contains the arguments passed to the command. Refers to action_map documentation for more informations.

Service connections

The so called 'service connection' could actually be multiple things. It just is the resource used for a specific action: a file opening, a SQL or a LDAP connection. For example, I need to access LDAP base for YunoHost's user manipulations, so I have to declare it. It could be a file opening (for repositories for example).

Because of potential complexity of its operations, the moulinette has a specific way to handle connections. A connection is initialized once if the action is requiring it. If you want to add a new connection (not yet implemented), you just have to put the connect and the disconnect method in connect_service() and disconnect_services() in the yunohost.py file. Then add your connection name to the action in the action_map dictionary.

We chose to make a class for some connections (i.e LDAP), in order to simplify some operations. Feel free to do the same.

Note: We could have used singleton classes. We probably need a Python expert to clarify this. :D

Error handling

Moulinette has a unified way to handle errors. First, you need to import the YunoHostError exception: from yunohost import YunoHostError

Then you need to raise errors like this: raise YunoHostError(<ERROR CODE>, <MESSAGE>)

For example: raise YunoHostError(125, _("Interrupted, user not created"))

Note: Standard error codes can be found in the YunoHostError class in yunohost.py file.

Print results

Moulinette also have a unified way to print results. In fact we don't only print result for the CLI, but we also have to export the result in a JSON way. Results are automatically printed OR exported, you don't have to print it yourself in the action's functions. Your function just need is to return results as a dictionary, for example: return { 'Fullname' : 'Homer Simpson', 'Mail' : 'homer@simpson.org', 'Username' : 'hsimpson' }

i18n

We will have to translate YunoHost, and we have already initialized i18n module in the moulinette. As a result, do not forget to put potentially translated strings into _() function. For example: raise YunoHostError(125, _("Interrupted, user not created"))

Git is pissing me off !

OK, this is the workflow !

For gitlab: Development is handle with git branches and you have your own (i.e dev_beudbeud).

git clone git@dev.yunohost.org:moulinette.git
git checkout -b dev_beudbeud ``
git rebase origin/dev 

Do your modifications, then :

git commit -am 'My commit message'
git pull origin dev (merge manually if conflicts)
git push origin dev_beudbeud 

Then you could ask for a 'merge request' in gitlab.

For github (here): Development is handle with forked repos and you have your own (i.e beudbeud/moulinette).

git clone https://github.com/beudbeud/moulinette.git ``
git checkout -b dev
git rebase origin/dev 

Do your modifications, then:

git commit -am 'My commit message'
git remote add vanilla https://github.com/YunoHost/moulinette.git
git pull vanilla dev (merge manually if conflicts)
git push origin dev

Then you could ask for a 'pull request' in github.