Custom item types

Step 0: Understand statedicts

To represent supposed vs. actual state, BundleWrap uses statedicts. These are normal Python dictionaries with some restrictions:

• keys must be Unicode text
• every value must be of one of these simple data types:
  • bool
  • float
  • int
  • Unicode text
  • None
• ...or a list/tuple containing only instances of one of the types above

Additional information can be stored in statedicts by using keys that start with an underscore. You may only use this for caching purposes (e.g. storing rendered file template content while the "real" sdict information only contains a hash of this content). BundleWrap will ignore these keys and hide them from the user. The type restrictions noted above do not apply.

Step 1: Create an item module

Create a new file called /your/bundlewrap/repo/items/foo.py. You can use this as a template:

from bundlewrap.items import Item


class Foo(Item):
    """
    A foo.
    """
    BUNDLE_ATTRIBUTE_NAME = "foo"
    ITEM_ATTRIBUTES = {
        'attribute': "default value",
    }
    ITEM_TYPE_NAME = "foo"
    REQUIRED_ATTRIBUTES = ['attribute']

    @classmethod
    def block_concurrent(cls, node_os, node_os_version):
        """
        Return a list of item types that cannot be applied in parallel
        with this item type.
        """
        return []

    def __repr__(self):
        return "<Foo attribute:{}>".format(self.attributes['attribute'])

    def cdict(self):
        """
        Return a statedict that describes the target state of this item
        as configured in the repo (mnemonic: _c_dict for _config_
        dict). Returning `None` instead means that the item should
        not exist.

        Implementing this method is optional. The default implementation
        uses the attributes as defined in the bundle.
        """
        raise NotImplementedError

    def sdict(self):
        """
        Return a statedict that describes the actual state of this item
        on the node (mnemonic: _s_dict for _state_ dict). Returning
        `None` instead means that the item does not exist on the
        node.

        For the item to validate as correct, the values for all keys in
        self.cdict() have to match this statedict.
        """
        raise NotImplementedError

    def display_on_create(self, cdict):
        """
        Given a cdict as implemented above, modify it to better suit
        interactive presentation when an item is created. If there are
        any when_creating attributes, they will be added to the cdict
        before it is passed to this method.

        Implementing this method is optional.
        """
        return cdict

    def display_dicts(self, cdict, sdict, keys):
        """
        Given cdict and sdict as implemented above, modify them to
        better suit interactive presentation. The keys parameter is a
        list of keys whose values differ between cdict and sdict.

        Implementing this method is optional.
        """
        return (cdict, sdict, keys)

    def display_on_delete(self, sdict):
        """
        Given an sdict as implemented above, modify it to better suit
        interactive presentation when an item is deleted.

        Implementing this method is optional.
        """
        return sdict

    def fix(self, status):
        """
        Do whatever is necessary to correct this item. The given ItemStatus
        object has the following useful information:

            status.keys_to_fix  list of cdict keys that need fixing
            status.cdict        cached copy of self.cdict()
            status.sdict        cached copy of self.sdict()
        """
        raise NotImplementedError

Step 2: Define attributes

BUNDLE_ATTRIBUTE_NAME is the name of the variable defined in a bundle module that holds the items of this type. If your bundle looks like this:

foo = { [...] }

...then you should put BUNDLE_ATTRIBUTE_NAME = "foo" here.

ITEM_ATTRIBUTES is a dictionary of the attributes users will be able to configure for your item. For files, that would be stuff like owner, group, and permissions. Every attribute (even if it's mandatory) needs a default value, None is totally acceptable:

ITEM_ATTRIBUTES = {'attr1': "default1"}

ITEM_TYPE_NAME sets the first part of an items ID. For the file items, this is "file". Therefore, file ID look this this: file:/path. The second part is the name a user assigns to your item in a bundle. Example:

ITEM_TYPE_NAME = "foo"

REQUIRED_ATTRIBUTES is a list of attribute names that must be set on each item of this type. If BundleWrap encounters an item without all these attributes during bundle inspection, an exception will be raised. Example:

REQUIRED_ATTRIBUTES = ['attr1', 'attr2']

Step 3: Implement methods

You should probably start with sdict(). Use self.run("command") to run shell commands on the current node and check the stdout property of the returned object.

The only other method you have to implement is fix. It doesn't have to return anything and just uses self.run() to fix the item. To do this efficiently, it may use the provided parameters indicating which keys differ between the should-be sdict and the actual one. Both sdicts are also provided in case you need to know their values.

block_concurrent() must return a list of item types (e.g. ['pkg_apt']) that cannot be applied in parallel with this type of item. May include this very item type itself. For most items this is not an issue (e.g. creating multiple files at the same time), but some types of items have to be applied sequentially (e.g. package managers usually employ locks to ensure only one package is installed at a time).

If you're having trouble, try looking at the source code for the items that come with BundleWrap. The pkg_* items are pretty simple and easy to understand while files is the most complex to date. Or just drop by on IRC or GitHub, we're glad to help.