The Evolution of Finger: making a finger library

  1. Introduction
  2. Organization
  3. Easy Configuration

Introduction

This is the tenth part of the Twisted tutorial Twisted from Scratch, or The Evolution of Finger.

In this part, we separate the application code that launches a finger service from the library code which defines a finger service, placing the application in a Twisted Application Configuration (.tac) file. We also move configuration (such as HTML templates) into separate files. Configuration and deployment with .tac and twistd are introduced in Using the Twisted Application Framework.

Organization

Now this code, while quite modular and well-designed, isn't properly organized. Everything above the application= belongs in a module, and the HTML templates all belong in separate files.

We can use the templateFile and templateDirectory attributes to indicate what HTML template file to use for each Page, and where to look for it.

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# organized-finger.tac
# eg:  twistd -ny organized-finger.tac

import finger

from twisted.internet import protocol, reactor, defer
from twisted.spread import pb
from twisted.web import resource, server
from twisted.application import internet, service, strports
from twisted.python import log

application = service.Application('finger', uid=1, gid=1)
f = finger.FingerService('/etc/users')
serviceCollection = service.IServiceCollection(application)
internet.TCPServer(79, finger.IFingerFactory(f)
                   ).setServiceParent(serviceCollection)

site = server.Site(resource.IResource(f))
internet.TCPServer(8000, site
                   ).setServiceParent(serviceCollection)

internet.SSLServer(443, site, finger.ServerContextFactory()
                   ).setServiceParent(serviceCollection)

i = finger.IIRCClientFactory(f)
i.nickname = 'fingerbot'
internet.TCPClient('irc.freenode.org', 6667, i
                   ).setServiceParent(serviceCollection)

internet.TCPServer(8889, pb.PBServerFactory(finger.IPerspectiveFinger(f))
                   ).setServiceParent(serviceCollection)
Source listing - listings/finger/organized-finger.tac

Note that our program is now quite separated. We have:

Prototypes don't need this level of separation, so our earlier examples all bunched together. However, real applications do. Thankfully, if we write our code correctly, it is easy to achieve a good separation of parts.

Easy Configuration

We can also supply easy configuration for common cases with a makeService method that will also help build .tap files later:

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# Easy configuration
# makeService from finger module

def makeService(config):
    # finger on port 79
    s = service.MultiService()
    f = FingerService(config['file'])
    h = internet.TCPServer(79, IFingerFactory(f))
    h.setServiceParent(s)

    # website on port 8000
    r = resource.IResource(f)
    r.templateDirectory = config['templates']
    site = server.Site(r)
    j = internet.TCPServer(8000, site)
    j.setServiceParent(s)

    # ssl on port 443
    if config.get('ssl'):
        k = internet.SSLServer(443, site, ServerContextFactory())
        k.setServiceParent(s)

    # irc fingerbot
    if config.has_key('ircnick'):
        i = IIRCClientFactory(f)
        i.nickname = config['ircnick']
        ircserver = config['ircserver']
        b = internet.TCPClient(ircserver, 6667, i)
        b.setServiceParent(s)

    # Pespective Broker on port 8889
    if config.has_key('pbport'):
        m = internet.TCPServer(
            int(config['pbport']),
            pb.PBServerFactory(IPerspectiveFinger(f)))
        m.setServiceParent(s)

    return s
Source listing - listings/finger/finger_config.py

And we can write simpler files now:

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# simple-finger.tac
# eg:  twistd -ny simple-finger.tac

from twisted.application import service

import finger

options = { 'file': '/etc/users',
            'templates': '/usr/share/finger/templates',
            'ircnick': 'fingerbot',
            'ircserver': 'irc.freenode.net',
            'pbport': 8889,
            'ssl': 'ssl=0' }

ser = finger.makeService(options)
application = service.Application('finger', uid=1, gid=1)
ser.setServiceParent(service.IServiceCollection(application))
Source listing - listings/finger/simple-finger.tac
% twisted -ny simple-finger.tac

Note: the finger user still has ultimate power: he can use makeService, or he can use the lower-level interface if he has specific needs (maybe an IRC server on some other port? Maybe we want the non-SSL webserver to listen only locally? etc. etc.) This is an important design principle: never force a layer of abstraction: allow usage of layers of abstractions.

The pasta theory of design:

Index

Version: 12.3.0