python-icat — Python interface to ICAT and IDS¶
The ICAT server is a metadata catalogue to support Large Facility experimental data, linking all aspects of the research chain from proposal through to publication. It provides SOAP and RESTful web service interfaces to an underlying database.
python-icat is a Python package that provides a collection of modules for writing programs that access an ICAT service using the SOAP interface. It is based on Suds and extends it with ICAT specific features.
The most important features include:
- Provide clients for ICAT and IDS.
- Keep the general structure and flexibility of Suds.
- Define Python classes to represent the entity object types from the ICAT schema.
- Read configuration from various sources, such as command line arguments, environment variables, and configuration files.
- Build JPQL expressions to search the ICAT server.
- Dump and restore ICAT content to and from a flat file. This is suitable as a general ingestion tool to ICAT.
Parts of the documentation¶
Tutorial¶
This tutorial provides a step by step introduction to the usage of python-icat. It intents to give an overview of python-icat’s most noteworthy features. You need to have python-icat installed to run the examples. You also need a running ICAT server and IDS server to connect to. Some examples in the tutorial assume to have root access and modify data, therefore it is not advisable to use a production ICAT. Rather setup a dedicated test ICAT to run the tutorial.
During the tutorial you will create some simple Python scripts and other files in your local file system. It is advisable to create a new empty folder for that purpose and change into that:
$ mkdir python-icat-tutorial
$ cd python-icat-tutorial
Some of the more advanced tutorial sections will require some example content in the ICAT server. You’ll need the file icatdump-4.10.yaml to set it up. This file can be found in the doc/examples directory in the python-icat source distribution.
The tutorial assumes some basic knowledge in programming with Python as well as some basic understanding of ICAT. The tutorial contains the following sections:
Hello World!¶
The minimal task to start any program environment is to print a simple message. The minimal interaction with an ICAT server is to connect to it and get its version. We’ll combine both in a simple program:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat.client
url = "https://icat.example.com:8181"
client = icat.client.Client(url)
print("Connect to %s\nICAT version %s" % (url, client.apiversion))
If you run this script, you should get something like the following as output:
$ python hello.py
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
ICAT version 4.10
The constructor of icat.client.Client takes the URL of the
ICAT service as argument. It contacts the ICAT server, queries the
version and stores the result to the attribute
apiversion of the client object.
Obviously, you’ll need to change the variable url in this example to
point to your ICAT server.
If your ICAT server does not have a trusted SSL certificate you may get (depending on your Python version) an error instead:
$ python hello.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
urllib.error.URLError: <urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed (_ssl.c:548)>
In this case, you may either install a trusted certificate in your
server now or modify your hello program and add a flag
checkCert=False to the constructor call like this:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat.client
url = "https://icat.example.com:8181"
client = icat.client.Client(url, checkCert=False)
print("Connect to %s\nICAT version %s" % (url, client.apiversion))
The future statement at the beginning of the example is only needed to compile print as a built-in function rather than a statement. We’ll use it throughout the tutorial to ensure that the examples will work with Python 2 as well as with Python 3.
The class icat.client.Client plays the central role in
python-icat programs. Most of your code will deal with objects of
this class. For this reason, the class is imported by default in the
icat package. The above example could also be written as:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat
url = "https://icat.example.com:8181"
client = icat.Client(url)
print("Connect to %s\nICAT version %s" % (url, client.apiversion))
Configuration¶
The example from the last section had the URL of the ICAT service hard
coded in the program. This is certainly not the best way to do it.
You could make it a command line argument, but then you would need to
indicate it each time you run the program, which is also not very
convenient. The module icat.config has been created to solve
this. It manages several configuration variables that most ICAT
client programs need.
Let’s modify the example program as follows:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(needlogin=False, ids=False)
client, conf = config.getconfig()
print("Connect to %s\nICAT version %s" % (conf.url, client.apiversion))
If we run this without any command line arguments, we get an error:
$ python config.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
icat.exception.ConfigError: Config option 'url' not given.
Apparently, there is a configuration option named url and we didn’t specify it. Let’s have a look on the command line options, that this program now accepts:
$ python config.py -h
usage: config.py [-h] [-c CONFIGFILE] [-s SECTION] [-w URL]
[--no-check-certificate] [--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY]
[--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY] [--no-proxy NO_PROXY]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c CONFIGFILE, --configfile CONFIGFILE
config file
-s SECTION, --configsection SECTION
section in the config file
-w URL, --url URL URL to the web service description
--no-check-certificate
don't verify the server certificate
--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY
proxy to use for http requests
--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY
proxy to use for https requests
--no-proxy NO_PROXY list of exclusions for proxy use
So there is a command line option -w URL. Let’s try:
$ python config.py -w 'https://icat.example.com:8181'
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
ICAT version 4.10
(Again, you may need to add the --no-check-certificate flag to the
command line if your ICAT server does not have a trusted SSL
certificate.) This does the job. But as mentioned above, it’s not
very convenient having to indicate the URL each time you run the
program. But in the command line arguments, there is also a mention
of a configuration file. Create a text file named icat.cfg in the
current working directory with the following content:
[myicat]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
# uncomment, if your server does not have a trusted certificate
#checkCert = No
Now you can do the following:
$ python config.py -s myicat
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
ICAT version 4.10
The command line option -s SECTION selects a section in the
configuration file to read options from.
python-icat is not only a client for ICAT, but also for IDS. Since both may be on a different server, we need to tell python-icat also about the URL to IDS. Modify the example program to read as:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(needlogin=False, ids="optional")
client, conf = config.getconfig()
print("Connect to %s\nICAT version %s" % (conf.url, client.apiversion))
if conf.idsurl:
print("Connect to %s\nIDS version %s"
% (conf.idsurl, client.ids.apiversion))
else:
print("No IDS configured")
If you run this in the same way as above, you’ll get:
$ python config-with-ids.py -s myicat
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
ICAT version 4.10
No IDS configured
But if you indicate the URL to IDS with the command line option
--idsurl, or even better in the configuration file as follows:
[myicat]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
# uncomment, if your server does not have a trusted certificate
#checkCert = No
You’ll get something like:
$ python config-with-ids.py -s myicat
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
ICAT version 4.10
Connect to https://icat.example.com:8181
IDS version 1.10.1
Authentication and login¶
Until now, we only connected the ICAT server to query its version.
This doesn’t require a login to the server and hence the flag
needlogin=False in the constructor call of
icat.config.Config in our example program. If we leave this
flag out, we get a bunch of new configuration variables. Consider the
following example program:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(ids="optional")
client, conf = config.getconfig()
client.login(conf.auth, conf.credentials)
print("Login to %s was successful." % (conf.url))
print("User: %s" % (client.getUserName()))
Let’s check the available command line options now:
$ python login.py -h
usage: login.py [-h] [-c CONFIGFILE] [-s SECTION] [-w URL] [--idsurl IDSURL]
[--no-check-certificate] [--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY]
[--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY] [--no-proxy NO_PROXY] [-a AUTH]
[-u USERNAME] [-P] [-p PASSWORD]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c CONFIGFILE, --configfile CONFIGFILE
config file
-s SECTION, --configsection SECTION
section in the config file
-w URL, --url URL URL to the web service description
--idsurl IDSURL URL to the ICAT Data Service
--no-check-certificate
don't verify the server certificate
--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY
proxy to use for http requests
--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY
proxy to use for https requests
--no-proxy NO_PROXY list of exclusions for proxy use
-a AUTH, --auth AUTH authentication plugin
-u USERNAME, --user USERNAME
username
-P, --prompt-pass prompt for the password
-p PASSWORD, --pass PASSWORD
password
Now call this program indicating the name of the authentication plugin and a user name:
$ python login.py -s myicat -a db -u jdoe
Password:
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
Note that the program prompted us for a password, since we didn’t provide one. Of course you need to specify an authentication plugin, user name, and password that is actually configured in your ICAT. Furthermore, the user name printed by the program may be different from the one indicated in the command line. This depends on the configuration of the authentication plugin in your ICAT. It is common praxis to prefix the user name with the name of the authentication plugin as shown in this example.
Note
For this tutorial we assume that the root user in the ICAT server has the user name root and is configured in the simple authenticator and that there are two users with name jdoe and nbour configured in the db authenticator. If this is not the case in your ICAT, you’ll need to adapt the examples accordingly.
All configuration variables aside from configFile and
configSection can be set in the configuration file. Edit your
icat.cfg file to read:
[myicat_jdoe]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = db
username = jdoe
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
# uncomment, if your server does not have a trusted certificate
#checkCert = No
You should protect this file from unauthorized read access if you store passwords in it. Now you can do:
$ python login.py -s myicat_jdoe
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
Command line options override the settings in the configuration file. This way, you can still log in as another user not configured in the file:
$ python login.py -s myicat_jdoe -u nbour
Password:
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/nbour
You might have noticed that the program again prompted us for a
password even though there is one set in the config file. The
icat.config module is smart enough to assume that if we
overrode the user name on the command line, the password in the config
file will likely not be valid for that user.
Configuration files can have many sections. It may come handy to be
able to quickly switch between different users to log into the ICAT.
Edit icat.cfg again to read as follows:
[myicat_root]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = simple
username = root
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
# uncomment, if your server does not have a trusted certificate
#checkCert = No
[myicat_jdoe]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = db
username = jdoe
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
#checkCert = No
[myicat_nbour]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = db
username = nbour
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
#checkCert = No
We shall use some of this configuration in the following sections of the tutorial. Do not forget to adapt the URLs, the authenticator names, and the passwords to what is configured in your ICAT.
Creating stuff in the ICAT server¶
The ICAT server is pretty useless if it is void of content. So let’s start creating some objects.
We could do it by writing and running a small Python script each time as in the last sections. But python-icat may also be used interactively at the Python prompt, so let’s try this out:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_root
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: simple/root
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[]
The -i command line option tells Python to enter interactive mode
after executing the login.py script from last section.
Creating simple objects¶
The search() result shows that there is no
Facility object in ICAT. Let’s create one. In the same session,
type:
>>> f1 = client.new("facility")
>>> f1.name = "Fac1"
>>> f1.fullName = "Facility 1"
>>> f1.id = client.create(f1)
The new() method instantiates a new
Facility object locally in the client. We set some of the
attributes of this new object. Finally, we call
create() to create it in the ICAT server.
The return value is the ID of the new Facility object in ICAT.
The result can be verified by repeating the search from above:
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}]
The same result could also have been obtained slightly differently:
the new() method optionally accepts keyword
arguments to set the attributes of the new object. Furthermore, the
Entity object itself also has a
create() method to create this object in the
ICAT server. We thus could achieve the same as above like this:
>>> f2 = client.new("facility", name="Fac2", fullName="Facility 2")
>>> f2.create()
To verify the result, we check again:
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}, (facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
fullName = "Facility 2"
name = "Fac2"
}]
Relationships to other objects¶
Most objects in the ICAT are related to other objects. Let’s first
retrieve again the first facility created above using the
get() method:
>>> f1 = client.get("Facility", 1)
The arguments are the name of the entity object class and the ID of
the object to fetch. You might need to adapt that second argument, if
the ICAT server attributed a different ID to your first facility, see
the output from the search() call above.
Now consider the following example:
>>> pt1 = client.new("parameterType")
>>> pt1.name = "Test parameter type 1"
>>> pt1.units = "pct"
>>> pt1.applicableToDataset = True
>>> pt1.valueType = "NUMERIC"
>>> pt1.facility = f1
>>> pt1.create()
The ParameterType has a many to one relationship to a
Facility. This relationship is established by setting the
corresponding attribute in the ParameterType object before
creating it in the ICAT. The Facility must already exist at this
point.
On the other hand, there is also a one to many relationship between
ParameterType and PermissibleStringValue in the ICAT schema.
Let’s create a ParameterType with string values:
>>> pt2 = client.new("parameterType")
>>> pt2.name = "Test parameter type 2"
>>> pt2.units = "N/A"
>>> pt2.applicableToDataset = True
>>> pt2.valueType = "STRING"
>>> pt2.facility = f1
>>> for v in ["buono", "brutto", "cattivo"]:
... psv = client.new("permissibleStringValue", value=v)
... pt2.permissibleStringValues.append(psv)
...
>>> pt2.create()
The permissibleStringValues attribute of ParameterType is a
list. We may add new PermissibleStringValue instances to this
list before creating the object. The PermissibleStringValue
instances should not yet exist in ICAT at this point, they will be
created together with the ParameterType object.
We can verify this by searching for the newly created objects:
>>> query = "SELECT pt FROM ParameterType pt INCLUDE pt.facility, pt.permissibleStringValues"
>>> client.search(query)
[(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
facility =
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}
name = "Test parameter type 1"
units = "pct"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}, (parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
facility =
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}
name = "Test parameter type 2"
permissibleStringValues[] =
(permissibleStringValue){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
value = "buono"
},
(permissibleStringValue){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
value = "brutto"
},
(permissibleStringValue){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
value = "cattivo"
},
units = "N/A"
valueType = "STRING"
verified = False
}]
As expected, we get a list of two ParameterType objects as result,
one of them related to a couple of PermissibleStringValue objects
that have been created at the same time as the related
ParameterType object.
Access rules¶
Until now, we connected the ICAT server as the root user. Let’s
try what happens if we choose another user:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_jdoe
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
>>> client.search("SELECT pt FROM ParameterType pt INCLUDE pt.facility")
[]
We can’t get any of the objects created above from ICAT. The reason
is that we don’t have the permission to access these objects. ICAT
has a default deny access policy: only the root user has read and
write access to everything, all other users get only access, if there
is a rule that explicitely allows it.
Let’s add some rules to allow public read access to some object types.
Connect again as root and enter:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_root
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: simple/root
>>> publicTables = [ "Application", "DatafileFormat", "DatasetType",
... "Facility", "FacilityCycle", "Instrument",
... "InvestigationType", "ParameterType",
... "PermissibleStringValue", "SampleType", ]
>>> queries = [ "SELECT o FROM %s o" % t for t in publicTables ]
>>> client.createRules("R", queries)
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
The createRules() method takes an access
mode and a list of search queries (and optionally a group) as
arguments. It will add rules that allow access to all objects yielded
by a search for any of the queries. The access mode is "R" for
read access in this example. createRules()
is a convenience method in python-icat roughly equivalent to:
>>> rules = []
>>> for w in queries:
... r = client.new("rule", crudFlags="R", what=w)
... rules.append(r)
...
>>> client.createMany(rules)
If we now try again to search for the objects as normal user, we get:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_jdoe
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
>>> client.search("SELECT pt FROM ParameterType pt INCLUDE pt.facility")
[(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
facility =
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}
name = "Test parameter type 1"
units = "pct"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}, (parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
facility =
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}
name = "Test parameter type 2"
units = "N/A"
valueType = "STRING"
verified = False
}]
Working with objects in the ICAT server¶
In the previous section of this tutorial, we created two Facility
objects:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_root
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: simple/root
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
fullName = "Facility 1"
name = "Fac1"
}, (facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
fullName = "Facility 2"
name = "Fac2"
}]
Let’s see what we can do with these objects.
Editing the attributes of objects¶
We can edit the attributes of existing objects by assigning values to
the corresponding Entity object. To write these
changes back into ICAT, we can either call the
icat.client.Client.update() method, or simply invoke the
object’s own update() method instead.
Let’s loop over our Facility objects to add some new attributes
and to edit existing ones:
>>> for facility in client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f"):
... facility.description = "An example facility"
... facility.daysUntilRelease = 1826
... facility.fullName = "%s Facility" % facility.name
... client.update(facility)
...
We can verify the changes by performing another search:
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:48:46+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
description = "An example facility"
fullName = "Fac1 Facility"
name = "Fac1"
}, (facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:48:46+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
description = "An example facility"
fullName = "Fac2 Facility"
name = "Fac2"
}]
To remove a particular attribute value, we usually just have to assign
None to it:
>>> for facility in client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f"):
... facility.description = None
... facility.update()
...
If we search again now, the descriptions are gone:
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:49:28+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
fullName = "Fac1 Facility"
name = "Fac1"
}, (facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:49:28+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
fullName = "Fac2 Facility"
name = "Fac2"
}]
Copying objects¶
By calling the copy() method on an existing
object, we can create a new object that has all attributes set to a
copy of the corresponding values of the original object. The
relations are copied by reference, i.e. the original and the copy
refer to the same related object.
To demonstrate this, we use one of the Facility objects we created
earlier, including its referenced ParameterType objects:
>>> fac = client.get("Facility f INCLUDE f.parameterTypes", 1)
>>> print(fac)
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:49:28+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
fullName = "Fac1 Facility"
name = "Fac1"
parameterTypes[] =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = False
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Test parameter type 1"
units = "pct"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
},
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = False
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Test parameter type 2"
units = "N/A"
valueType = "STRING"
verified = False
},
}
Now we create a copy of this object and modify its attributes. The
attributes of the original object remain unchanged. However, any
changes to the referenced ParameterType objects are reflected in
both the copy and the original:
>>> facc = fac.copy()
>>> print(facc.name)
Fac1
>>> print(facc.parameterTypes[0].name)
Test parameter type 1
>>> facc.name = "Fac0"
>>> facc.parameterTypes[0].name = "Test parameter type 0"
>>> print(fac.name)
Fac1
>>> print(fac.parameterTypes[0].name)
Test parameter type 0
When working with objects from ICAT, it can be a bit cumbersome to
keep the (possibly large) tree of related objects in local memory. If
you only need to keep the object’s attributes, you can use the
truncateRelations() method to delete all
references to other objects from this object. Note that this is a
local operation on the object in the client only. It does neither
affect the corresponding object at the ICAT server, nor any copies of
the object:
>>> fac.truncateRelations()
>>> print(fac)
(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:39:18+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:49:28+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
fullName = "Fac1 Facility"
name = "Fac1"
}
>>> print(facc)
(facility){
createId = None
createTime = None
id = 1
modId = None
modTime = None
daysUntilRelease = 1826
description = None
fullName = "Fac1 Facility"
name = "Fac0"
parameterTypes[] =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:54+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = False
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Test parameter type 0"
units = "pct"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
},
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:41:30+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = False
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Test parameter type 2"
units = "N/A"
valueType = "STRING"
verified = False
},
url = None
}
Searching for objects in the ICAT server¶
There are many ways to search for objects in ICAT using python-icat.
Until now, we have seen how we can manually write JPQL query strings
and pass them to the search() method:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_root
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: simple/root
>>> client.search("SELECT f FROM Facility f INCLUDE f.parameterTypes LIMIT 1,1")
[(facility){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2019-11-26 12:40:02+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2019-11-26 12:49:28+01:00
daysUntilRelease = 1826
fullName = "Fac2 Facility"
name = "Fac2"
}]
However, as our queries get more complicated, this can be a bit
inconvenient. The icat.query module provides an easier and
less error-prone way to build queries. In addition, the
icat.client.Client class has some useful methods as well.
But before we get into that, we will make sure that we actually have some well defined and rich content to search for. Run the following commands at the command line:
$ wipeicat -s myicat_root
$ icatingest -s myicat_root -i icatdump-4.10.yaml
wipeicat and icatingest are two scripts that get
installed with python-icat. Depending on the situation, these scripts
may be installed either with or without a trailing .py extension.
The file icatdump-4.10.yaml can be found in the python-icat source
distribution. The first command deletes all content from the ICAT
server that we may have created in the previous sections. The second
command reads the icatdump-4.10.yaml file and creates all objects
listed therein in the ICAT server.
Note
As the name suggests, the content in icatdump-4.10.yaml requires an ICAT server version 4.10 or newer. If you are using an older ICAT, you may just as well use the icatdump-4.7.yaml or icatdump-4.4.yaml file instead, matching the respective older versions. For the sake of this tutorial, the difference does not matter.
Note
The search results in the following examples may depend on the user you log into ICAT as, because not all users have read access to all data. The examples assume that your user name (as displayed by the login.py script) is db/nbour. If that does not work for you, you may as well log in as root.
Building advanced queries¶
The icat.query module provides the Query
class. We need to import it first:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_nbour
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/nbour
>>> from icat.query import Query
Now let’s have a look at some examples. We start with a simple query that lists all investigations:
>>> query = Query(client, "Investigation")
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Investigation o
>>> client.search(query)
[(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:27+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:27+01:00
name = "08100122-EF"
startDate = 2008-03-13 11:39:42+01:00
title = "Durol single crystal"
visitId = "1.1-P"
}, (investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}, (investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:33+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:33+01:00
endDate = 2012-08-06 03:10:08+02:00
name = "12100409-ST"
startDate = 2012-07-26 17:44:24+02:00
title = "NiO SC OF1 JUH HHL"
visitId = "1.1-P"
}]
In order to search for a particular investigation, we may add an
appropriate condition. The conditions argument to
Query should be a mapping of attribute names to
conditions on that attribute:
>>> query = Query(client, "Investigation", conditions={"name": "= '10100601-ST'"})
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Investigation o WHERE o.name = '10100601-ST'
>>> client.search(query)
[(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}]
We may also include related objects in the search results:
>>> query = Query(client, "Investigation", conditions={"name": "= '10100601-ST'"}, includes=["datasets"])
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Investigation o WHERE o.name = '10100601-ST' INCLUDE o.datasets
>>> client.search(query)
[(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
datasets[] =
(dataset){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
complete = False
endDate = 2010-10-01 08:17:48+02:00
name = "e208339"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
},
(dataset){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
id = 4
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
complete = False
endDate = 2010-10-05 10:32:21+02:00
name = "e208341"
startDate = 2010-10-02 04:00:21+02:00
},
(dataset){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
complete = False
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "e208342"
startDate = 2010-10-09 07:00:00+02:00
},
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}]
The conditions in a query may also be put on the attributes of related objects. This allows rather complex queries. Let us search for the datasets in this investigation that have been measured in a magnetic field larger then 5 Tesla and include its parameters in the result:
>>> conditions = {
... "investigation.name": "= '10100601-ST'",
... "parameters.type.name": "= 'Magnetic field'",
... "parameters.type.units": "= 'T'",
... "parameters.numericValue": "> 5.0",
... }
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", conditions=conditions, includes=["parameters.type"])
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Dataset o JOIN o.investigation AS i JOIN o.parameters AS p JOIN p.type AS pt WHERE i.name = '10100601-ST' AND p.numericValue > 5.0 AND pt.name = 'Magnetic field' AND pt.units = 'T' INCLUDE o.parameters AS p, p.type
>>> client.search(query)
[(dataset){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
complete = False
endDate = 2010-10-01 08:17:48+02:00
name = "e208339"
parameters[] =
(datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
numericValue = 7.3
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Magnetic field"
units = "T"
unitsFullName = "Tesla"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
},
(datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
numericValue = 5.0
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Reactor power"
units = "MW"
unitsFullName = "Megawatt"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
},
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
}]
We may incrementally add conditions to a query. This is particularly useful if the presence of some of the conditions depend on the logic of your Python program. Consider:
>>> def get_investigation(client, name, visitId=None):
... query = Query(client, "Investigation")
... query.addConditions({"name": "= '%s'" % name})
... if visitId is not None:
... query.addConditions({"visitId": "= '%s'" % visitId})
... print(query)
... return client.assertedSearch(query)[0]
...
>>> get_investigation(client, "08100122-EF")
SELECT o FROM Investigation o WHERE o.name = '08100122-EF'
(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:27+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:27+01:00
name = "08100122-EF"
startDate = 2008-03-13 11:39:42+01:00
title = "Durol single crystal"
visitId = "1.1-P"
}
>>> get_investigation(client, "12100409-ST", "1.1-P")
SELECT o FROM Investigation o WHERE o.name = '12100409-ST' AND o.visitId = '1.1-P'
(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:33+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:33+01:00
endDate = 2012-08-06 03:10:08+02:00
name = "12100409-ST"
startDate = 2012-07-26 17:44:24+02:00
title = "NiO SC OF1 JUH HHL"
visitId = "1.1-P"
}
This get_investigation() function will search for investigations, either by name alone or by name and visitId, depending on the arguments.
It is also possible to put more then one conditions on a single attribute: setting the corresponding value in the conditions argument to a list of strings will result in combining the conditions on that attribute. Search for all datafiles created in 2012:
>>> conditions = {
... "datafileCreateTime": [">= '2012-01-01'", "< '2013-01-01'"]
... }
>>> query = Query(client, "Datafile", conditions=conditions)
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Datafile o WHERE o.datafileCreateTime >= '2012-01-01' AND o.datafileCreateTime < '2013-01-01'
>>> client.search(query)
[(datafile){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
datafileCreateTime = 2012-07-16 16:30:17+02:00
datafileModTime = 2012-07-16 16:30:17+02:00
fileSize = 28937
name = "e208945-2.nxs"
}, (datafile){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 8
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
checksum = "bd55affa"
datafileCreateTime = 2012-07-30 03:10:08+02:00
datafileModTime = 2012-07-30 03:10:08+02:00
fileSize = 459
name = "e208945.dat"
}, (datafile){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 10
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
datafileCreateTime = 2012-07-16 16:30:17+02:00
datafileModTime = 2012-07-16 16:30:17+02:00
fileSize = 14965
name = "e208947.nxs"
}]
Of course, that last example also works when adding the conditions incrementally:
>>> query = Query(client, "Datafile")
>>> query.addConditions({"datafileCreateTime": ">= '2012-01-01'"})
>>> query.addConditions({"datafileCreateTime": "< '2013-01-01'"})
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Datafile o WHERE o.datafileCreateTime >= '2012-01-01' AND o.datafileCreateTime < '2013-01-01'
Instead of returning a list of the matching objects, we may also request single attributes. The result will be a list of the attribute values of the matching objects. Listing the names of all datasets:
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", attributes="name")
>>> print(query)
SELECT o.name FROM Dataset o
>>> client.search(query)
[e201215, e201216, e208339, e208341, e208342, e208945, e208946, e208947]
As the name of that keyword argument suggests, we may also search for multiple attributes at once. The result will be a tuple of attribute values rather then a single value for each object found in the query. This requires an ICAT server version 4.11 or newer though:
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", attributes=["investigation.name", "name", "complete", "type.name"])
>>> print(query)
SELECT i.name, o.name, o.complete, t.name FROM Dataset o JOIN o.investigation AS i JOIN o.type AS t
>>> client.search(query)
[(08100122-EF, e201215, False, raw), (08100122-EF, e201216, False, raw), (10100601-ST, e208339, False, raw), (10100601-ST, e208341, False, raw), (10100601-ST, e208342, False, raw), (12100409-ST, e208945, False, raw), (12100409-ST, e208946, False, raw), (12100409-ST, e208947, True, analyzed)]
There are also some aggregate functions that may be applied to search results. Let’s count all datasets:
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", aggregate="COUNT")
>>> print(query)
SELECT COUNT(o) FROM Dataset o
>>> client.search(query)
[8]
Using such aggregate functions in a query may result in a huge performance gain, because the counting is done directly in the database backend of ICAT, instead of compiling a list of all datasets, transferring them to the client, and counting them at client side.
Let’s check for a given investigation, the minimum, maximum, and average magnetic field applied in the measurements:
>>> conditions = {
... "dataset.investigation.name": "= '10100601-ST'",
... "type.name": "= 'Magnetic field'",
... "type.units": "= 'T'",
... }
>>> query = Query(client, "DatasetParameter", conditions=conditions, attributes="numericValue")
>>> print(query)
SELECT o.numericValue FROM DatasetParameter o JOIN o.dataset AS ds JOIN ds.investigation AS i JOIN o.type AS t WHERE i.name = '10100601-ST' AND t.name = 'Magnetic field' AND t.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[7.3, 2.7]
>>> query.setAggregate("MIN")
>>> print(query)
SELECT MIN(o.numericValue) FROM DatasetParameter o JOIN o.dataset AS ds JOIN ds.investigation AS i JOIN o.type AS t WHERE i.name = '10100601-ST' AND t.name = 'Magnetic field' AND t.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[2.7]
>>> query.setAggregate("MAX")
>>> print(query)
SELECT MAX(o.numericValue) FROM DatasetParameter o JOIN o.dataset AS ds JOIN ds.investigation AS i JOIN o.type AS t WHERE i.name = '10100601-ST' AND t.name = 'Magnetic field' AND t.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[7.3]
>>> query.setAggregate("AVG")
>>> print(query)
SELECT AVG(o.numericValue) FROM DatasetParameter o JOIN o.dataset AS ds JOIN ds.investigation AS i JOIN o.type AS t WHERE i.name = '10100601-ST' AND t.name = 'Magnetic field' AND t.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[5.0]
For another example, let’s search for all investigations, having any dataset with a magnetic field parameter set:
>>> conditions = {
... "datasets.parameters.type.name": "= 'Magnetic field'",
... "datasets.parameters.type.units": "= 'T'",
... }
>>> query = Query(client, "Investigation", conditions=conditions)
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Investigation o JOIN o.datasets AS s1 JOIN s1.parameters AS s2 JOIN s2.type AS s3 WHERE s3.name = 'Magnetic field' AND s3.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}, (investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}]
We get the same investigation twice! The reason is that this investigation has two datasets, both having a magnetic field parameter respectively. We may fix that by applying DISTINCT:
>>> query.setAggregate("DISTINCT")
>>> print(query)
SELECT DISTINCT(o) FROM Investigation o JOIN o.datasets AS s1 JOIN s1.parameters AS s2 JOIN s2.type AS s3 WHERE s3.name = 'Magnetic field' AND s3.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[(investigation){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:28+01:00
endDate = 2010-10-12 17:00:00+02:00
name = "10100601-ST"
startDate = 2010-09-30 12:27:24+02:00
title = "Ni-Mn-Ga flat cone"
visitId = "1.1-N"
}]
DISTINCT may be combined with COUNT, AVG, and SUM in order to make sure not to count the same object more then once:
>>> conditions = {
... "datasets.parameters.type.name": "= 'Magnetic field'",
... "datasets.parameters.type.units": "= 'T'",
... }
>>> query = Query(client, "Investigation", conditions=conditions, aggregate="COUNT")
>>> print(query)
SELECT COUNT(o) FROM Investigation o JOIN o.datasets AS s1 JOIN s1.parameters AS s2 JOIN s2.type AS s3 WHERE s3.name = 'Magnetic field' AND s3.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[2]
>>> query.setAggregate("COUNT:DISTINCT")
>>> print(query)
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(o)) FROM Investigation o JOIN o.datasets AS s1 JOIN s1.parameters AS s2 JOIN s2.type AS s3 WHERE s3.name = 'Magnetic field' AND s3.units = 'T'
>>> client.search(query)
[1]
The JPQL queries support sorting of the results. Search for all dataset parameter, ordered by parameter type name (ascending), units (ascending), and value (descending):
>>> order = ["type.name", "type.units", ("numericValue", "DESC")]
>>> query = Query(client, "DatasetParameter", includes=["type"], order=order)
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM DatasetParameter o JOIN o.type AS t ORDER BY t.name, t.units, o.numericValue DESC INCLUDE o.type
>>> client.search(query)
[(datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
numericValue = 7.3
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Magnetic field"
units = "T"
unitsFullName = "Tesla"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}, (datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
id = 4
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
numericValue = 2.7
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Magnetic field"
units = "T"
unitsFullName = "Tesla"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}, (datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:32+01:00
numericValue = 5.0
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Reactor power"
units = "MW"
unitsFullName = "Megawatt"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}, (datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:29+01:00
numericValue = 5.0
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:24+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Reactor power"
units = "MW"
unitsFullName = "Megawatt"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}, (datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
numericValue = 3.92
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:25+01:00
id = 9
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:25+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Sample temperature"
units = "C"
unitsFullName = "Celsius"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}, (datasetParameter){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 6
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
numericValue = 277.07
type =
(parameterType){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:25+01:00
id = 10
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:25+01:00
applicableToDataCollection = False
applicableToDatafile = False
applicableToDataset = True
applicableToInvestigation = False
applicableToSample = False
enforced = False
name = "Sample temperature"
units = "K"
unitsFullName = "Kelvin"
valueType = "NUMERIC"
verified = False
}
}]
We may limit the number of returned items. Search for the second to last dataset to have been finished:
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", order=[("endDate", "DESC")], limit=(1, 1))
>>> print(query)
SELECT o FROM Dataset o ORDER BY o.endDate DESC LIMIT 1, 1
>>> client.search(query)
[(dataset){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
id = 6
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-05 16:49:34+01:00
complete = False
endDate = 2012-07-30 03:10:08+02:00
name = "e208945"
startDate = 2012-07-26 17:44:24+02:00
}]
Useful search methods¶
Additionally to the generic search() method
defined in the ICAT API, python-icat provides a few custom search
methods that are useful in particular situations.
assertedSearch¶
The generic search returns a list of matching objects. Often, the
number of objects to expect in the result is known from the context.
In the most common case, you would expect exactly one object in the
result and would raise an error if this is not the case. This is what
assertedSearch() does. Example: in many
production ICAT installations there is one and only one facility
object and you often need to fetch that in your scripts in order to
create a new investigation or a new parameter type. Using the generic
search method you would write the following boiler plate code over and
over:
res = client.search(Query(client, "Facility"))
if not res:
raise RuntimeError("Facility not found")
elif len(res) > 1:
raise RuntimeError("Facility not unique")
facility = res[0]
(Note that you cannot safely subscript the result unless you know it’s
not empty.) Using assertedSearch(), you can
write the same as:
facility = client.assertedSearch(Query(client, "Facility"))[0]
searchChunked¶
A production ICAT has many datasets and datafiles. You cannot search
for all of them at once, because the result might not fit in your
client’s memory. Furthermore, ICAT has a configured limit for the
maximum of objects to return in one search call, so you might hit that
wall if you are not careful. The
searchChunked() method comes handy if you
need to iterate over a potentially large set of results. It can be
used as a drop in replacement for the generic search method most of
the times, see the reference documentation for some subtle
differences. You can safely do things like:
for ds in client.searchChunked(Query(client, "Dataset")):
# do something useful with the dataset ds ...
print(ds.name)
searchMatching¶
Given an object having all the attributes and related objects set that
form the uniqueness constraint for the object type, the
searchMatching() method searches this very
object from the ICAT server. While this may not sound very useful at
first glance, it has a particular use case:
def get_dataset(client, inv_name, ds_name, ds_type="raw"):
"""Get a dataset in an investigation.
If it already exists, search and return it, create it, if not.
"""
try:
dataset = client.new("dataset")
query = Query(client, "Investigation", conditions={
"name": "= '%s'" % inv_name
})
dataset.investigation = client.assertedSearch(query)[0]
query = Query(client, "DatasetType", conditions={
"name": "= '%s'" % ds_type
})
dataset.type = client.assertedSearch(query)[0]
dataset.complete = False
dataset.name = ds_name
dataset.create()
except icat.ICATObjectExistsError:
dataset = client.searchMatching(dataset)
return dataset
Upload and download files to and from IDS¶
The ICAT Data Service (IDS) is the component that manages the storage in ICAT. It implements file upload and download. You can use python-icat not only as a client for ICAT, but also for IDS. In this tutorial section, we look at some basic examples of this. The examples below assume to have a running IDS that is ready to accept our requests.
If the idsurl configuration variable is set (see
Configuration for details), python-icat will provide an IDS
client in the ids attribute of the
Client class. This IDSClient
provides methods for the IDS API calls:
$ python -i login.py -s myicat_nbour
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/nbour
>>> client.ids.isReadOnly()
False
Additionally, the Client class directly provides
methods for some of the mosten often needed IDS calls. These custom
IDS methods are based on the low level IDS client methods but are
somewhat more convenient to use and integrate better in the
python-icat data structures.
This tutorial section uses the same example content in ICAT as the previous section. This content can be set up with the following commands at the command line:
$ wipeicat -s myicat_root
$ icatingest -s myicat_root -i icatdump-4.10.yaml
If you already did that for the previous section, you don’t need to repeat it. Take notice of the hint on the content of the icatdump-4.10.yaml file and ICAT server versions from the previous section.
Upload files¶
Obviously, we would need some local files first, if we want to upload them. Let’s create a few:
>>> users = [("jdoe", "John"), ("nbour", "Nicolas"), ("rbeck", "Rudolph")]
>>> for user, name in users:
... with open("greet-%s.txt" % user, "wt") as f:
... print("Hello %s!" % name, file=f)
...
We need a dataset in ICAT that the uploaded files should be put into, so let’s create one:
>>> from icat.query import Query
>>> investigation = client.assertedSearch(Query(client, "Investigation", conditions={"name": "= '12100409-ST'"}))[0]
>>> dataset = client.new("dataset")
>>> dataset.investigation = investigation
>>> dataset.type = client.assertedSearch(Query(client, "DatasetType", conditions={"name": "= 'other'"}))[0]
>>> dataset.name = "greetings"
>>> dataset.complete = False
>>> dataset.create()
For each of the files, we create a new datafile object and call the
putData() method to upload it:
>>> df_format = client.assertedSearch(Query(client, "DatafileFormat", conditions={"name": "= 'Text'"}))[0]
>>> for fname in ("greet-jdoe.txt", "greet-nbour.txt", "greet-rbeck.txt"):
... datafile = client.new("datafile", name=fname, dataset=dataset, datafileFormat=df_format)
... client.putData(fname, datafile)
...
(datafile){
createId = "db/nbour"
createTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
id = 11
modId = "db/nbour"
modTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
checksum = "bef32c73"
datafileCreateTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
datafileModTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
fileSize = 12
location = "3/9/f3b5c400-0a24-4915-b7a7-d4f976ec3e73"
name = "greet-jdoe.txt"
}
(datafile){
createId = "db/nbour"
createTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
id = 12
modId = "db/nbour"
modTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
checksum = "9012de77"
datafileCreateTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
datafileModTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
fileSize = 15
location = "3/9/392d4c49-d9c4-40fa-b4cb-5bdcbb4414e6"
name = "greet-nbour.txt"
}
(datafile){
createId = "db/nbour"
createTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
id = 13
modId = "db/nbour"
modTime = 2020-02-21 14:57:16+01:00
checksum = "cc830993"
datafileCreateTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
datafileModTime = 2020-02-21 13:45:16+01:00
fileSize = 15
location = "3/9/dd4c6f7f-05f6-418d-8c1f-8a87ca727e5a"
name = "greet-rbeck.txt"
}
Note that we did not create these datafiles in ICAT. IDS did this for
us in response to the putData() call. IDS
also calculated the checksum and set the file size. The location
attribute is also set by IDS and is mostly only relevant internally in
IDS. The value depends on the IDS storage plugin and may be
different. The datafileCreateTime and the datafileModTime has been
determined by fstat’ing the local files in
putData().
Download files¶
We can request a download of a set of data using the
getData() method:
>>> query = Query(client, "Datafile", conditions={"name": "= 'greet-jdoe.txt'", "dataset.name": "= 'greetings'"})
>>> df = client.assertedSearch(query)[0]
>>> data = client.getData([df])
>>> type(data)
<class 'http.client.HTTPResponse'>
>>> data.read().decode('utf8')
'Hello John!\n'
This method takes a list of investigation, dataset, or datafile
objects as argument. It returns a HTTPResponse
object, which is a file like object that we can read the body of the
HTTP response from. If we requested only one single file, this
response will contain the file content. If more then a single file is
requested, either by passing multiple files in the argument or by
requesting a dataset having multiple files, IDS will send a zip file
with the requested files:
>>> from io import BytesIO
>>> from zipfile import ZipFile
>>> query = Query(client, "Dataset", conditions={"name": "= 'greetings'"})
>>> ds = client.assertedSearch(query)[0]
>>> data = client.getData([ds])
>>> buffer = BytesIO(data.read())
>>> with ZipFile(buffer) as zipfile:
... for f in zipfile.namelist():
... print("file name: %s" % f)
... print("content: %r" % zipfile.open(f).read().decode('utf8'))
...
file name: ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-jdoe.txt
content: 'Hello John!\n'
file name: ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-nbour.txt
content: 'Hello Nicolas!\n'
file name: ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-rbeck.txt
content: 'Hello Rudolph!\n'
The internal file names in the zip file depend on the IDS storage plugin and may be different.
Note that it may happen that the files we request are not readily available because they are archived to tape. We create this condition by explicitely requesting IDS to archive our dataset:
>>> from icat.ids import DataSelection
>>> selection = DataSelection([ds])
>>> client.ids.archive(selection)
Note that we needed to resort to a low level call from the IDS client
for that. This method requires the selected data to be wrapped in a
DataSelection object. We may also check that
status:
>>> client.ids.getStatus(selection)
'ARCHIVED'
If we request the data now, we will get an error from IDS:
>>> data = client.getData([ds])
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
icat.exception.IDSDataNotOnlineError: Before putting, getting or deleting a datafile, its dataset has to be restored, restoration requested automatically
As the error message hints, a restoration of the data has been requested automatically. So we can just repeat the request again after a short while:
>>> client.ids.getStatus(selection)
'ONLINE'
>>> data = client.getData([ds])
>>> len(data.read())
665
We can ask IDS with the prepareData() call
to store a selection of data objects internally for later referral:
>>> preparedId = client.prepareData(selection)
>>> preparedId
'eb0dd942-7ce9-4ea9-b342-ea326edd4dfe'
The return value is a random id. We can use that preparedId to query the status or to download the data:
>>> client.isDataPrepared(preparedId)
True
>>> data = client.getData(preparedId)
>>> buffer = BytesIO(data.read())
>>> with ZipFile(buffer) as zipfile:
... zipfile.namelist()
...
['ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-jdoe.txt', 'ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-nbour.txt', 'ids/ESNF/12100409-ST/1.1-P/greetings/greet-rbeck.txt']
Advanced configuration¶
So far, we have relied on the icat.config module to provide
configuration variables for us (such as url or idsurl). However,
programs may also define their own custom configuration variables.
Custom configuration variables¶
Let’s add the option to redirect the output of our example program to
a file. The output file path shall be passed via the command line as
a configuration variable. To set this up, we can use the
add_variable() method:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import sys
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(ids="optional")
config.add_variable("outfile", ("-o", "--outputfile"),
dict(help="output file name or '-' for stdout"),
default="-")
client, conf = config.getconfig()
client.login(conf.auth, conf.credentials)
if conf.outfile == "-":
out = sys.stdout
else:
out = open(conf.outfile, "wt")
print("Login to %s was successful." % (conf.url), file=out)
print("User: %s" % (client.getUserName()), file=out)
out.close()
This adds a new configuration variable outfile. It can be specified
on the command line as -o OUTFILE or --outputfile OUTFILE and
it defaults to the string - if not specified. We can check this
on the list of available command line options:
$ python config-custom.py -h
usage: config-custom.py [-h] [-c CONFIGFILE] [-s SECTION] [-w URL]
[--idsurl IDSURL] [--no-check-certificate]
[--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY] [--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY]
[--no-proxy NO_PROXY] [-a AUTH] [-u USERNAME] [-P]
[-p PASSWORD] [-o OUTFILE]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c CONFIGFILE, --configfile CONFIGFILE
config file
-s SECTION, --configsection SECTION
section in the config file
-w URL, --url URL URL to the web service description
--idsurl IDSURL URL to the ICAT Data Service
--no-check-certificate
don't verify the server certificate
--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY
proxy to use for http requests
--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY
proxy to use for https requests
--no-proxy NO_PROXY list of exclusions for proxy use
-a AUTH, --auth AUTH authentication plugin
-u USERNAME, --user USERNAME
username
-P, --prompt-pass prompt for the password
-p PASSWORD, --pass PASSWORD
password
-o OUTFILE, --outputfile OUTFILE
output file name or '-' for stdout
This new option is optional, so the program can be used as before:
$ python config-custom.py -s myicat_jdoe
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
If we add the option on the command line, it has the expected effect:
$ python config-custom.py -s myicat_jdoe -o out.txt
$ cat out.txt
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
Alternatively, we may also specify the option in the configuration file as follows:
[myicat_jdoe]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = db
username = jdoe
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
#checkCert = No
outfile = out.txt
Flag configuration variables¶
Instead of passing a string value to our program, we can also define different variable types using the type parameter. Among other things, this allows us to pass boolean/flag parameters. Let’s add another configuration variable to our example program that lets us control the output via a flag:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import sys
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(ids="optional")
config.add_variable("outfile", ("-o", "--outputfile"),
dict(help="output file name or '-' for stdout"),
default="-")
config.add_variable("hide", ["--hide-user-name"],
dict(help="do not display the user after login"),
default=False, type=icat.config.flag)
client, conf = config.getconfig()
client.login(conf.auth, conf.credentials)
if conf.outfile == "-":
out = sys.stdout
else:
out = open(conf.outfile, "wt")
print("Login to %s was successful." % (conf.url), file=out)
if not conf.hide:
print("User: %s" % (client.getUserName()), file=out)
out.close()
If we call our program normally, we get the same output as before:
$ python config-flag.py -s myicat_jdoe
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
But if we pass the flag parameter, it produces a different output:
$ python config-flag.py -s myicat_jdoe --hide-user-name
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
A flag type configuration variable also adds a negated form of the command line flag:
$ python config-flag.py -s myicat_jdoe --no-hide-user-name
Login to https://icat.example.com:8181 was successful.
User: db/jdoe
This may look somewhat pointless at first glance as it only affirms the default. It becomes useful if we set this flag in the configuration file as in:
[myicat_jdoe]
url = https://icat.example.com:8181
auth = db
username = jdoe
password = secret
idsurl = https://icat.example.com:8181
#checkCert = No
hide = true
In that case we can override this setting on the command line with
--no-hide-user-name.
Defining sub-commands¶
Many programs split up their functionality into sub-commands. For
instance, the git program can be called as git clone, git
checkout, git commit, and so on. In general, each sub-command
will take their own set of configuration variables.
You can create programs like this and manage the configuration of each
sub-command with icat.config using the
add_subcommands() method. It adds a
special ConfigSubCmds configuration variable
representing the sub-command. This object provides the
add_subconfig() method to register a
new sub-command value. On the sub-config object in turn you can then
define specific configuration variables using the familiar
add_variable() method.
To put it all together, consider the following example program:
#! /usr/bin/python
from __future__ import print_function
import icat
import icat.config
config = icat.config.Config(ids="optional")
# add a global configuration variable 'entity' common for all sub-commands
config.add_variable("entity", ("-e", "--entity"),
dict(help="an entity from the ICAT schema",
choices=["User", "Study"]))
# add the configuration variable representing the sub-commands
subcmds = config.add_subcommands("mode")
# register three possible values for the sub-commands {list,create,delete}
subconfig_list = subcmds.add_subconfig("list",
dict(help="list existing ICAT objects"))
subconfig_create = subcmds.add_subconfig("create",
dict(help="create a new ICAT object"))
subconfig_delete = subcmds.add_subconfig("delete",
dict(help="delete an ICAT object"))
# add two additional configuration variables 'name' and 'id' that are
# specific to the 'create' and 'delete' sub-commands respectively.
subconfig_create.add_variable("name", ("-n", "--name"),
dict(help="name for the new ICAT object"))
subconfig_delete.add_variable("id", ("-i", "--id"),
dict(help="ID of the ICAT object"))
client, conf = config.getconfig()
client.login(conf.auth, conf.credentials)
# check which sub-command (mode) was called
if conf.mode.name == "list":
print("listing existing %s objects..." % conf.entity)
print(client.search(conf.entity))
elif conf.mode.name == "create":
print("creating a new %s object named %s..." % (conf.entity, conf.name))
obj = client.new(conf.entity.lower(), name=conf.name)
obj.create()
elif conf.mode.name == "delete":
print("deleting the %s object with ID %s..." % (conf.entity, conf.id))
obj = client.get(conf.entity, conf.id)
client.delete(obj)
print("done")
If we check the available commands for the above program, our three sub-commands should be listed:
$ python config-sub-commands.py -h
usage: config-sub-commands.py [-h] [-c CONFIGFILE] [-s SECTION] [-w URL]
[--idsurl IDSURL] [--no-check-certificate]
[--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY]
[--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY]
[--no-proxy NO_PROXY] [-a AUTH] [-u USERNAME]
[-P] [-p PASSWORD] [-e {User,Study}]
{list,create,delete} ...
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c CONFIGFILE, --configfile CONFIGFILE
config file
-s SECTION, --configsection SECTION
section in the config file
-w URL, --url URL URL to the web service description
--idsurl IDSURL URL to the ICAT Data Service
--no-check-certificate
don't verify the server certificate
--http-proxy HTTP_PROXY
proxy to use for http requests
--https-proxy HTTPS_PROXY
proxy to use for https requests
--no-proxy NO_PROXY list of exclusions for proxy use
-a AUTH, --auth AUTH authentication plugin
-u USERNAME, --user USERNAME
username
-P, --prompt-pass prompt for the password
-p PASSWORD, --pass PASSWORD
password
-e {User,Study}, --entity {User,Study}
an entity from the ICAT schema
subcommands:
{list,create,delete}
list list existing ICAT objects
create create a new ICAT object
delete delete an ICAT object
This looks good. Let’s try calling our program with the list
sub-command. Of course we must also provide a section from our
config file (-s SECTION) as well as the entity variable (-e
{User,Study}) we defined earlier:
$ python config-sub-commands.py -s myicat_root -e User list
listing existing User objects...
[(user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Aelius Cordus"
name = "db/acord"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Arnold Hau"
name = "db/ahau"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Jean-Baptiste Botul"
name = "db/jbotu"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 4
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "John Doe"
name = "db/jdoe"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Nicolas Bourbaki"
name = "db/nbour"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 6
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Rudolph Beck-Dülmen"
name = "db/rbeck"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "IDS reader"
name = "simple/idsreader"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 8
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Root"
name = "simple/root"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 9
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "User Office"
name = "simple/useroffice"
}]
done
We see the users defined in the example content created in the
previous tutorial sections. Let’s add a new user. We will use the
create sub-command to do this. Earlier, we defined a configuration
variable name (-n NAME) that is specific to the create
sub-command. We can check this by calling:
$ python config-sub-commands.py create -h
usage: config-sub-commands.py create [-h] [-n NAME]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-n NAME, --name NAME name for the new ICAT object
Let’s create a new User object named “db/alice”. Note that we must
provide the ‘global’ configuration variables (section and entity)
before the sub-command, and the sub-command-specific option (name)
after it:
$ python config-sub-commands.py -s myicat_root -e User create -n db/alice
creating a new User object named db/alice...
done
If we now list the User objects again, we can see a new object
with name “db/alice”:
$ python config-sub-commands.py -s myicat_root -e User list
listing existing User objects...
[(user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 1
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Aelius Cordus"
name = "db/acord"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 2
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Arnold Hau"
name = "db/ahau"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 3
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Jean-Baptiste Botul"
name = "db/jbotu"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 4
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "John Doe"
name = "db/jdoe"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 5
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Nicolas Bourbaki"
name = "db/nbour"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 6
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Rudolph Beck-Dülmen"
name = "db/rbeck"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 7
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "IDS reader"
name = "simple/idsreader"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 8
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "Root"
name = "simple/root"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
id = 9
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-20 15:55:39+01:00
fullName = "User Office"
name = "simple/useroffice"
}, (user){
createId = "simple/root"
createTime = 2020-02-21 18:34:29+01:00
id = 10
modId = "simple/root"
modTime = 2020-02-21 18:34:29+01:00
name = "db/alice"
}]
done
Finally, let’s delete this new object using the delete sub-command.
To do this, we must specify the sub-command-specific configuration
variable id (-i ID). In the above output, we can see that the
object’s ID is 10, so we write:
$ python config-sub-commands.py -s myicat_root -e User delete -i 10
deleting the User object with ID 10...
done
Module reference¶
This section provides a reference for the python-icat modules.
Modules defining the python-icat API¶
These modules define classes or functions that common python-icat programs interact with.
icat.client — Provide the Client class¶
The icat.client defines the Client class
that manages the interaction with an ICAT service as a client.
-
class
icat.client.Client(url, idsurl=None, checkCert=True, caFile=None, caPath=None, sslContext=None, proxy=None, **kwargs)¶ Bases:
suds.client.ClientA client accessing an ICAT service.
This is a subclass of
suds.client.Clientand inherits most of its behavior. It adds methods for the instantiation of ICAT entities and implementations of the ICAT API methods.Parameters: - url (
str) – The URL pointing to the WSDL of the ICAT service. If the URL does not contain a path, e.g. contains only a URL scheme and network location part, a default path is assumend. - idsurl (
str) – The URL pointing to the IDS service. If set, anicat.ids.IDSClientinstance will be created. - checkCert (
bool) – Flag whether the server’s SSL certificate should be verified if connecting ICAT with HTTPS. - caFile (
str) – Path to a file of concatenated trusted CA certificates. If neither caFile nor caPath is set, the system’s default certificates will be used. - caPath (
str) – Path to a directory containing trusted CA certificates. If neither caFile nor caPath is set, the system’s default certificates will be used. - sslContext (
ssl.SSLContext) – A SSL context describing various SSL options to be used in HTTPS connections. If set, this will override checkCert, caFile, and caPath. - proxy (
dict) – HTTP proxy settings. A map with the keys http_proxy and https_proxy and the URL of the respective proxy to use as values. - kwargs – additional keyword arguments that will be passed to
suds.client.Client, seesuds.options.Optionsfor details.
Class attributes
-
Register¶ The register of all active clients.
-
AutoRefreshRemain¶ Number of minutes to leave in the session before automatic refresh should be called.
Instance attributes
-
url¶ The URL to the web service description of the ICAT server.
-
kwargs¶ A copy of the kwargs used in the constructor.
-
apiversion¶ Version of the ICAT server this client connects to.
-
autoLogout¶ Flag whether the client should logout automatically on exit.
-
ids¶ The
icat.ids.IDSClientinstance used for IDS calls.
-
sslContext¶ The
ssl.SSLContextinstance that has been used to establish the HTTPS conection to the ICAT and IDS server. This isNonefor old Python versions that do not have thessl.SSLContextclass.
-
typemap¶ A
dictthat maps type names from the ICAT WSDL schema to the corresponding classes in theicat.entity.Entityhierarchy.
Class and instance methods
-
classmethod
cleanupall()¶ Cleanup all class instances.
Call
cleanup()on all registered class instances, e.g. on all clients that have not yet been cleaned up.
-
cleanup()¶ Release resources allocated by the client.
Logout from the active ICAT session (if
autoLogoutisTrue). The client should not be used any more after calling this method.
-
add_ids(url, proxy=None)¶ Add the URL to an ICAT Data Service.
-
clone()¶ Create a clone.
Return a clone of the
Clientobject. That is, a client that connects to the same ICAT server and has been created with the same kwargs. The clone will be in the state as returned from the constructor. In particular, it does not share the same session if this client object is logged in.Returns: a clone of the client object. Return type: Client
-
new(obj, **kwargs)¶ Instantiate a new
icat.entity.Entityobject.If obj is a string, take it as the name of an instance type. Create a new instance object of this type and lookup the class for the object in the
typemapusing this type name. If obj is an instance object, look up its class name in the typemap to determine the class. If obj isNone, do nothing and returnNone.Parameters: - obj (
suds.sudsobject.Objectorstr) – either a Suds instance object, a name of an instance type, orNone. - kwargs – attributes passed to the constructor of
icat.entity.Entity.
Returns: the new entity object or
None.Return type: Raises: EntityTypeError – if obj is neither a valid instance object, nor a valid name of an entity type, nor None.
- obj (
-
getEntityClass(name)¶ Return the Entity class corresponding to a BeanName.
-
getEntity(obj)¶ Get the corresponding
icat.entity.Entityfor an object.if obj is a fieldSet, return a tuple of the fields. If obj is any other Suds instance object, create a new entity object with
new(). Otherwise do nothing and return obj unchanged.Parameters: obj ( suds.sudsobject.Objector any type) – either a Suds instance object or anything.Returns: the new entity object or obj. Return type: tupleoricat.entity.Entityor any typeChanged in version 0.18.0: add support of fieldSet.
ICAT API methods
These methods implement the low level API calls of the ICAT server. See the documentation in the ICAT SOAP Manual. (Note: the Python examples in that manual are based on plain Suds, not on python-icat.)
-
login(auth, credentials)¶
-
logout()¶
-
create(bean)¶
-
createMany(beans)¶
-
delete(bean)¶
-
deleteMany(beans)¶
-
get(query, primaryKey)¶
-
getApiVersion()¶
-
getAuthenticatorInfo()¶
-
getEntityInfo(beanName)¶
-
getEntityNames()¶
-
getProperties()¶
-
getRemainingMinutes()¶
-
getUserName()¶
-
getVersion()¶
-
isAccessAllowed(bean, accessType)¶
-
refresh()¶
-
search(query)¶
-
update(bean)¶
Custom API methods
These higher level methods build on top of the ICAT API methods.
-
autoRefresh()¶ Call
refresh()only if needed.Call
refresh()if less thenAutoRefreshRemainminutes remain in the current session. Do not make any client calls if not. This method is supposed to be very cheap if enough time remains in the session so that it may be called often in a loop without causing too much needless load.
-
assertedSearch(query, assertmin=1, assertmax=1)¶ Search with an assertion on the result.
Perform a search and verify that the number of items found lies within the bounds of assertmin and assertmax. Raise an error if this assertion fails.
Parameters: - query (
icat.query.Queryorstr) – the search query. - assertmin (
int) – minimum number of expected results. - assertmax (
int) – maximum number of expected results. A value ofNoneis treated as infinity.
Returns: search result.
Return type: Raises: - ValueError – in case of inconsistent arguments.
- SearchAssertionError – if the assertion on the number of results fails.
- ICATError – in case of exceptions raised by the ICAT server.
- query (
-
searchChunked(query, skip=0, count=None, chunksize=100)¶ Search the ICAT server.
Call the ICAT
search()API method, limiting the number of results in each call and repeat the call as often as needed to retrieve all the results.This can be used as a drop in replacement for the search API method most of the times. It avoids the error if the number of items in the result exceeds the limit imposed by the ICAT server. There are a few subtle differences though: the query must not contain a LIMIT clause (use the skip and count arguments instead) and should contain an ORDER BY clause. The return value is a generator yielding successively the items in the search result rather then a list. The individual search calls are done lazily, e.g. they are not done until needed to yield the next item from the generator.
Note
The result may be defective (omissions, duplicates) if the content in the ICAT server changes between individual search calls in a way that would affect the result. It is a common mistake when looping over items returned from this method to have code with side effects on the search result in the body of the loop. Example:
# Mark all datasets as complete # This will *not* work as expected! query = Query(client, "Dataset", conditions={ "complete": "= False" }, includes="1", order=["id"]) for ds in client.searchChunked(query): ds.complete = True ds.update()
This should rather be formulated as:
# Mark all datasets as complete # This version works! query = Query(client, "Dataset", includes="1", order=["id"]) for ds in client.searchChunked(query): if not ds.complete: continue ds.complete = True ds.update()
Parameters: - query (
icat.query.Queryorstr) – the search query. - skip (
int) – offset from within the full list of available results. - count (
int) – maximum number of items to return. A value ofNonemeans no limit. - chunksize (
int) – number of items to query in each search call. This is an internal tuning parameter and does not affect the result.
Returns: a generator that successively yields the items in the search result.
Return type: generator
- query (
-
searchUniqueKey(key, objindex=None)¶ Search the object that belongs to a unique key.
This is in a sense the inverse method to
icat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey(), the key must previously have been generated by it. This method searches the entity object that the key has been generated for from the server.if objindex is not
None, it is used as a cache of previously retrieved objects. It must be a dict that maps keys to entity objects. The object retrieved by this method call will be added to this index.Parameters: Returns: the object corresponding to the key.
Return type: Raises: - SearchResultError – if the object has not been found.
- ValueError – if the key is not well formed.
-
searchMatching(obj, includes=None)¶ Search the matching object.
Search the object from the ICAT server that matches the given object in the uniqueness constraint.
>>> dataset = client.new("dataset", investigation=inv, name=dsname) >>> dataset = client.searchMatching(dataset) >>> dataset.id 172383
Parameters: - obj (
icat.entity.Entity) – an entity object having the attrinutes for the uniqueness constraint set accordingly. - includes (iterable of
str) – list of related objects to add to the INCLUDE clause of the search query. Seeicat.query.Query.addIncludes()for details.
Returns: the corresponding object.
Return type: Raises: - SearchResultError – if the object has not been found.
- ValueError – if the object’s class does not have a uniqueness constraint or if any attribute needed for the constraint is not set.
- obj (
-
createUser(name, search=False, **kwargs)¶ Search a user by name or create a new user.
If search is
Truesearch a user by the given name. If search isFalseor no user is found, create a new user.Parameters: Returns: the user.
Return type:
-
createGroup(name, users=())¶ Create a group and add users to it.
Parameters: - name (
str) – the name of the group. - users (
listoficat.entity.Entity) – a list of users.
Returns: the group.
Return type: - name (
-
createRules(crudFlags, what, group=None)¶ Create access rules.
Parameters: - crudFlags (
str) – access mode. - what (
list) – list of items subject to the rule. The items must be either ICAT search expression strings oricat.query.Queryobjects. - group (
icat.entity.Entity) – the group that should be granted access orNonefor everybody.
Returns: list of the ids of the created rules.
Return type: - crudFlags (
Custom IDS methods
These methods provide the most commonly needed IDS functionality and build on top of the low level IDS API methods provided by
icat.ids.IDSClient.-
putData(infile, datafile)¶ Upload a datafile to IDS.
The content of the file to upload is read from infile, either directly if it is an open file, or a file by that name will be opened for reading.
The datafile object must be initialized but not yet created at the ICAT server. It will be created by the IDS. The ids of the Dataset and the DatafileFormat as well as the attributes description, doi, datafileCreateTime, and datafileModTime will be taken from datafile. If datafileModTime is not set, the method will try to
os.fstat()infile and use the last modification time from the file system, if available. If datafileCreateTime is not set, it will be set to datafileModTime.Note that only the attributes datafileFormat, dataset, description, doi, datafileCreateTime, and datafileModTime of datafile will be taken into account as described above. All other attributes are ignored and the Datafile object created in the ICAT server might end up with different values for those other attribues.
Parameters: - infile (
fileorstr) – either a file opened for reading or a file name. - datafile (
icat.entity.Entity) – A Datafile object.
Returns: The Datafile object created by IDS.
Return type: - infile (
-
getData(objs, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False, outname=None, offset=0)¶ Retrieve the requested data from IDS.
The data objects to retrieve are given in objs. This can be any combination of single Datafiles, Datasets, or complete Investigations.
Parameters: - objs (
dict,listoficat.entity.Entity,icat.ids.DataSelection, orstr) – either a dict having some of the keys investigationIds, datasetIds, and datafileIds with a list of object ids as value respectively, or a list of entity objects, or a data selection, or an id returned byprepareData(). - compressFlag (
bool) – flag whether to use a zip format with an implementation defined compression level, otherwise use no (or minimal) compression. - zipFlag (
bool) – flag whether return a single datafile in zip format. For multiple files zip format is always used. - outname (
str) – the preferred name for the downloaded file to specify in the Content-Disposition header. - offset (
int) – if larger then zero, add Range header to the HTTP request with the indicated bytes offset.
Returns: a file-like object as returned by
urllib.request.OpenerDirector.open().- objs (
-
getDataUrl(objs, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False, outname=None)¶ Get the URL to retrieve the requested data from IDS.
The data objects to retrieve are given in objs. This can be any combination of single Datafiles, Datasets, or complete Investigations.
Note that the URL contains the session id of the current ICAT session. It will become invalid if the client logs out.
Parameters: - objs (
dict,listoficat.entity.Entity,icat.ids.DataSelection, orstr) – either a dict having some of the keys investigationIds, datasetIds, and datafileIds with a list of object ids as value respectively, or a list of entity objects, or a data selection, or an id returned byprepareData(). - compressFlag (
bool) – flag whether to use a zip format with an implementation defined compression level, otherwise use no (or minimal) compression. - zipFlag (
bool) – flag whether return a single datafile in zip format. For multiple files zip format is always used. - outname (
str) – the preferred name for the downloaded file to specify in the Content-Disposition header.
Returns: the URL for the data at the IDS.
Return type: - objs (
-
prepareData(objs, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False)¶ Prepare data at IDS to be retrieved in subsequent calls.
The data objects to retrieve are given in objs. This can be any combination of single Datafiles, Datasets, or complete Investigations.
Parameters: - objs (
dict,listoficat.entity.Entity, oricat.ids.DataSelection) – either a dict having some of the keys investigationIds, datasetIds, and datafileIds with a list of object ids as value respectively, or a list of entity objects, or a data selection. - compressFlag (
bool) – flag whether to use a zip format with an implementation defined compression level, otherwise use no (or minimal) compression. - zipFlag (
bool) – flag whether return a single datafile in zip format. For multiple files zip format is always used.
Returns: preparedId, an opaque string which may be used as an argument to
isDataPrepared()andgetData()calls.Return type: - objs (
-
isDataPrepared(preparedId)¶ Check if prepared data is ready at IDS.
Parameters: preparedId ( str) – the id returned byprepareData().Returns: Trueif the data is ready, otherwiseFalse.Return type: bool
-
getPreparedData(preparedId, outname=None, offset=0)¶ Retrieve prepared data from IDS.
Parameters: - preparedId (
str) – the id returned byprepareData(). - outname (
str) – the preferred name for the downloaded file to specify in the Content-Disposition header. - offset (
int) – if larger then zero, add Range header to the HTTP request with the indicated bytes offset.
Returns: a file-like object as returned by
urllib.request.OpenerDirector.open().Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
getData()instead.- preparedId (
-
getPreparedDataUrl(preparedId, outname=None)¶ Get the URL to retrieve prepared data from IDS.
Parameters: - preparedId (
str) – the id returned byprepareData(). - outname (
str) – the preferred name for the downloaded file to specify in the Content-Disposition header.
Returns: the URL for tha data at the IDS.
Return type: Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
getDataUrl()instead.- preparedId (
-
deleteData(objs)¶ Delete data from IDS.
The data objects to delete are given in objs. This can be any combination of single Datafiles, Datasets, or complete Investigations.
Parameters: objs ( dict,listoficat.entity.Entity, oricat.ids.DataSelection) – either a dict having some of the keys investigationIds, datasetIds, and datafileIds with a list of object ids as value respectively, or a list of entity objects, or a data selection.
- url (
icat.config — Manage configuration¶
This module reads configuration variables from different sources, such
as command line arguments, environment variables, and configuration
files. A set of configuration variables that any ICAT client program
typically needs is predefined. Custom configuration variables may be
added. The main class that client programs interact with is
icat.config.Config.
-
icat.config.cfgdirs¶ Search path for the configuration file. The value depends on the operating system.
-
icat.config.cfgfile= 'icat.cfg'¶ Configuration file name
-
icat.config.defaultsection= None¶ Default value for configSection
-
icat.config.boolean(value)¶ Test truth value.
Convert the string representation of a truth value, such as ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘true’, or ‘false’ to
bool. This function is suitable to be passed as type toicat.config.BaseConfig.add_variable().
-
icat.config.flag¶ Variant of
icat.config.boolean()that defines two command line arguments to switch the value on and off respectively. May be passed as type toicat.config.BaseConfig.add_variable().
-
icat.config.cfgpath(p)¶ Search for a file in some default directories.
The argument p should be a file path name. If p is absolute, it will be returned unchanged. Otherwise, p will be resolved against the directories in
icat.config.cfgdirsin reversed order. If a file with the resulting path is found to exist, this path will be returned, first match wins. If no file exists in any of the directories, p will be returned unchanged.This function is suitable to be passed as type argument to
icat.config.BaseConfig.add_variable().
-
class
icat.config.ConfigVariable(name, envvar, optional, default, convert, subst)¶ Bases:
objectDescribe a configuration variable. Configuration variables are created in
icat.config.BaseConfig.add_variable()and control the behavior oficat.config.Config.getconfig().
-
class
icat.config.ConfigSubCmds(name, optional, config, subparsers)¶ Bases:
icat.config.ConfigVariableA special configuration variable that selects a subcommand. These subcommand configuration variables are created in
icat.config.BaseConfig.add_subcommand(). Possible values for the subcommand are then registered calling theadd_subconfig()method.-
add_subconfig(name, arg_kws=None, func=None)¶ Add a comand to a set of subcommands defined with
icat.config.BaseConfig.add_subcommands().Parameters: - name (
str) – the name of the command. - arg_kws (
dict) – constructor arguments to be passed toargparse.ArgumentParser()to create the subparser. Mostly useful to set help. - func – any custom value. The configuration value
representing the subcommands in the
icat.config.Configurationobject returned byicat.config.Config.getconfig()will have an attribute func with this value if this command has been selected. Most useful to set this to a callable that implements the command.
Returns: a subconfig object that allows to set specific configuration variables for the command.
Return type: Raises: ValueError – if the name is already defined.
- name (
-
-
class
icat.config.Configuration(config)¶ Bases:
objectProvide a name space to store the configuration.
icat.config.Config.getconfig()returns a Configuration object having the configuration values stored in the respective attributes.
-
class
icat.config.BaseConfig(argparser)¶ Bases:
objectAbstract base class for
icat.config.Configandicat.config.SubConfig. This class defines the common API. It is not intended to be instantiated directly.Class attributes (read only):
-
ReservedVariables = ['configDir', 'credentials'] Reserved names of configuration variables.
Instance methods:
-
add_variable(name, arg_opts=(), arg_kws=None, envvar=None, optional=False, default=None, type=None, subst=False)¶ Defines a new configuration variable.
Note that the value of some configuration variable may influence the evaluation of other variables. For instance, if configFile and configSection are set, the values for other configuration variables are searched in this configuration file. Thus, the evaluation order of the configuration variables is important. The variables are evaluated in the order that this method is called to define the respective variable.
Call
argparse.ArgumentParser.add_argument()to add a new command line argument if arg_opts is set.Parameters: - name (
str) – the name of the variable. This will be used as the name of the attribute oficat.config.Configurationreturned byicat.config.Config.getconfig()and as the name of the option to be looked for in the configuration file. The name must be unique and not inicat.config.Config.ReservedVariables. If arg_opts corresponds to a positional argument, the name must be equal to this argument name. - arg_opts (
tupleofstr) – command line flags associated with this variable. This will be passed as name or flags toargparse.ArgumentParser.add_argument(). - arg_kws (
dict) – keyword arguments to be passed toargparse.ArgumentParser.add_argument(). - envvar (
str) – name of the environment variable orNone. If set, the value for the variable may be set from the respective environment variable. - optional (
bool) – flag wether the configuration variable is optional. If set toFalseand default isNonethe variable is mandatory. - default – default value.
- type (callable) – type to which the value should be converted.
This must be a callable that accepts one string argument
and returns the desired value. Python builtins
intandfloator some standard library classes such asPathare fine. If set toNone, the string value is taken as is. If applicable, the default value will also be passed through this conversion. The special valueicat.config.flagmay also be used to indicate a variant oficat.config.boolean(). - subst (
bool) – flag wether substitution of other configuration variables using the%interpolation operator shall be performed. If set toTrue, the value may contain conversion specifications such as%(othervar)s. This will then be substituted by the value of othervar. The referenced variable must have been defined earlier.
Returns: the new configuration variable object.
Return type: Raises: - RuntimeError – if this objects already has subcommands
defined with
icat.config.BaseConfig.add_subcommands(). - ValueError – if the name is not valid.
See: the documentation of the
argparsestandard library module for details on arg_opts and arg_kws.- name (
-
add_subcommands(name='subcmd', arg_kws=None, optional=False)¶ Defines a new configuration variable to select subcommands.
Note
adding a subcommand variable must be the last action of this kind on a
icat.config.BaseConfigobject. Adding any more configuration variables or subcommand variables subsequently is not allowed. As a consequence, aicat.config.BaseConfigobject may not have more then one subcommand variable.Parameters: - name (
str) – the name of the variable. This will be used as the name of the attribute oficat.config.Configurationreturned byicat.config.Config.getconfig()and as the name of the option to be looked for in the configuration file. The name must be unique and not inicat.config.Config.ReservedVariables. - arg_kws (
dict) – keyword arguments to be passed toargparse.ArgumentParser.add_subparsers(). Mostly useful to set title or help. Note that dest will be overridden and set to the value of name. - optional (
bool) – flag wether providing a subcommand is optional.
Returns: the new subcommand object.
Return type: icat.config.ConfigSubCmdRaises: - RuntimeError – if this objects already has subcommands.
- ValueError – if the name is not valid.
See: the documentation of the
argparsestandard library module for details on arg_kws.- name (
-
-
class
icat.config.Config(defaultvars=True, needlogin=True, ids='optional', args=None)¶ Bases:
icat.config.BaseConfigSet configuration variables.
Allow configuration variables to be set via command line arguments, environment variables, configuration files, and default values, in this order. In the case of a hidden credential such as a password, the user may also be prompted for a value. The first value found will be taken. Command line arguments and configuration files are read using the standard Python library modules
argparseandconfigparserrespectively, see the documentation of these modules for details on how to setup custom arguments or for the format of the configuration files.The constructor sets up some predefined configuration variables.
Parameters: - defaultvars (
bool) – if set toFalse, no default configuration variables other then configFile and configSection will be defined. The arguments needlogin and ids will be ignored in this case. - needlogin (
bool) – if set toFalse, the configuration variables auth, username, password, promptPass, and credentials will be left out. - ids (
boolorstr) – the configuration variable idsurl will not be set up at all, or be set up as a mandatory, or as an optional variable, if this is set toFalse, to ‘mandatory’, or to ‘optional’ respectively. - args (
listofstr) – list of command line arguments orNone. If not set, the command line arguments will be taken fromsys.argv.
Instance attributes (read only):
-
client¶ The
icat.client.Clientobject initialized according to the configuration. This is also the first element in the return value ifgetconfig().
Instance methods:
-
getconfig()¶ Get the configuration.
Parse the command line arguments, evaluate environment variables, read the configuration file, and apply default values (in this order) to get the value for each defined configuration variable. The first defined value found will be taken.
Returns: a tuple with two items, a client initialized to connect to an ICAT server according to the configuration and an object having the configuration values set as attributes. The client will be Noneif the defaultvars constructor argument wasFalse.Return type: tupleoficat.client.Clientandicat.config.ConfigurationRaises: ConfigError – if configFile is defined but the file by this name can not be read, if configSection is defined but no section by this name could be found in the configuration file, if an invalid value is given to a variable, or if a mandatory variable is not defined.
- defaultvars (
-
class
icat.config.SubConfig(argparser, parent, name=None, func=None)¶ Bases:
icat.config.BaseConfigSet configuration variables for a subcommand.
These subconfig objects are created in
icat.config.ConfigSubCmds.add_subconfig(). Specific configuration variables for the respective subcommand may be added calling theadd_variable()method inherited fromicat.config.BaseConfig.
Predefined configuration variables¶
The constructor of icat.config.Config sets up the following
set of configuration variables that an ICAT client typically needs:
- configFile
- Name of the configuration file to read.
- configSection
- Name of the section in the configuration file to apply. If not set, no values will be read from the configuration file.
- url
- URL to the web service description of the ICAT server.
- idsurl
- URL to the ICAT Data Service.
- checkCert
- Verify the server certificate for HTTPS connections. Note that this requires either Python 2.7.9 or 3.2 or newer. With older Python version, this option has no effect.
- http_proxy
- Proxy to use for HTTP requests.
- https_proxy
- Proxy to use for HTTPS requests.
- no_proxy
- Comma separated list of domain extensions proxy should not be used for.
- auth
- Name of the authentication plugin to use for login.
- username
- The ICAT user name.
- password
- The user’s password. Will prompt for the password if not set.
- promptPass
- Prompt for the password.
A few derived variables are also set in
icat.config.Config.getconfig():
- configDir
- the directory where (the last) configFile has been found.
- credentials
- contains the credentials needed for the indicated authenticator (username and password if authenticator information is not available) suitable to be passed to
icat.client.Client.login().
Deprecated since version 0.13: The derived variable configDir is deprecated and will be removed in version 1.0.
The command line arguments, environment variables, and default values for the configuration variables are as follows:
| Name | Command line | Environment | Default | Mandatory | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| configFile | -c, --configfile |
ICAT_CFG |
depends | no | (1) |
| configSection | -s, --configsection |
ICAT_CFG_SECTION |
None |
no | (2) |
| url | -w, --url |
ICAT_SERVICE |
yes | ||
| idsurl | --idsurl |
ICAT_DATA_SERVICE |
None |
depends | (3) |
| checkCert | --check-certificate,
--no-check-certificate |
True |
no | ||
| http_proxy | --http-proxy |
http_proxy |
None |
no | |
| https_proxy | --https-proxy |
https_proxy |
None |
no | |
| no_proxy | --no-proxy |
no_proxy |
None |
no | |
| auth | -a, --auth |
ICAT_AUTH |
yes | (4) | |
| username | -u, --user |
ICAT_USER |
yes | (4),(5) | |
| password | -p, --pass |
interactive | yes | (4),(5),(6) | |
| promptPass | -P, --prompt-pass |
False |
no | (4),(5),(6) |
Mandatory means that an error will be raised in
icat.config.Config.getconfig() if no value is found for the
configuration variable in question.
Notes:
- The default value for configFile depends on the operating system.
- The default value for configSection may be changed in
icat.config.defaultsection. - The configuration variable idsurl will not be set up at all, or
be set up as a mandatory, or as an optional variable, if the ids
argument to the constructor of
icat.config.Configis set toFalse, to “mandatory”, or to “optional” respectively. - If the argument needlogin to the constructor of
icat.config.Configis set toFalse, the configuration variables auth, username, password, promptPass, and credentials will be left out. - If the ICAT server supports the
icat.client.Client.getAuthenticatorInfo()API call (icat.server 4.9.0 and newer), the server will be queried about the credentials required for the authenticator indicated by the value of auth. The corresponding variables will be setup in the place of username and password. The variable promptPass will be setup only if any of the credentials is marked as hidden in the authenticator information. - The user will be prompted for the password if promptPass is
True, if no password is provided in the command line or the configuration file, or if the username, but not the password has been provided by command line arguments. This applies accordingly to credentials marked as hidden if authenticator information is available from the server.
If the argument defaultvars to the constructor of
icat.config.Config is set to False, no default
configuration variables other then configFile and configSection
will be defined. The configuration mechanism is still intact. In
particular, custom configuration variables may be defined and reading
the configuration file still works.
icat.entities — Provide classes corresponding to the ICAT schema¶
Provide the classes corresponding to the entities in the ICAT schema.
Entity classes defined in this module are derived from the abstract
base class icat.entity.Entity. They override the class
attributes icat.entity.Entity.BeanName,
icat.entity.Entity.Constraint,
icat.entity.Entity.InstAttr,
icat.entity.Entity.InstRel,
icat.entity.Entity.InstMRel,
icat.entity.Entity.AttrAlias, and
icat.entity.Entity.SortAttrs as appropriate.
Furthermore, custom methods are added to a few selected entity classes.
-
class
icat.entities.GroupingMixin¶ Bases:
objectMixin class to define custom methods for Grouping objects.
-
addUsers(users)¶ Add users to the group.
-
getUsers(attribute=None)¶ Get the users in the group. If attribute is given, return the corresponding attribute for all users in the group, otherwise return the users.
-
-
class
icat.entities.InstrumentMixin¶ Bases:
objectMixin class to define custom methods for Instrument objects.
-
addInstrumentScientists(users)¶ Add instrument scientists to the instrument.
-
getInstrumentScientists(attribute=None)¶ Get instrument scientists of the instrument. If attribute is given, return the corresponding attribute for all users related to the instrument, otherwise return the users.
-
-
class
icat.entities.InvestigationMixin¶ Bases:
objectMixin class to define custom methods for Investigation objects.
-
addInstrument(instrument)¶ Add an instrument to the investigation.
-
addKeywords(keywords)¶ Add keywords to the investigation.
-
addInvestigationUsers(users, role='Investigator')¶ Add investigation users.
-
-
class
icat.entities.Investigation44Mixin¶ Bases:
icat.entities.InvestigationMixinMixin class to define custom methods for Investigation objects for ICAT version 4.4.0 and later.
-
addInvestigationGroup(group, role=None)¶ Add an investigation group.
-
-
icat.entities.getTypeMap(client)¶ Generate a type map for the client.
Query the ICAT server about the entity classes defined in the schema and their attributes and relations. Generate corresponding Python classes representing these entities. The Python classes are based on
icat.entity.Entity.Parameters: client ( icat.client.Client) – a client object configured to connect to an ICAT server.Returns: a mapping of type names from the ICAT web service description to the corresponding Python classes. This mapping may be used as icat.client.Client.typemapfor the client object.Return type: dict
icat.entity — Provide the Entity class¶
-
class
icat.entity.Entity(client, instance, **kwargs)¶ Bases:
objectThe base of the classes representing the entities in the ICAT schema.
Entity is the abstract base for a hierarchy of classes representing the entities in the ICAT schema. It implements the basic behavior of these classes.
Each Entity object is connected to an instance of
suds.sudsobject.Object, named instance in the following. Instances are created by Suds based on the ICAT WSDL schema. Entity objects mimic the behavior of the corresponding instance. Attribute accesses are proxied to the instance. A transparent conversion between Entity objects and Suds instances is performed where appropriate.-
BeanName= None¶ Name of the entity in the ICAT schema,
Nonefor abstract classes.
-
Constraint= ('id',)¶ Attribute or relation names that form a uniqueness constraint.
-
SelfAttr= frozenset({'instance', 'client', 'validate'})¶ Attributes stored in the Entity object itself.
-
InstAttr= frozenset({'id'})¶ Attributes of the entity in the ICAT schema, stored in the instance.
-
MetaAttr= frozenset({'createId', 'modId', 'createTime', 'modTime'})¶ Readonly meta attributes, retrieved from the instance.
-
InstRel= frozenset()¶ Many to one relationships in the ICAT schema.
-
InstMRel= frozenset()¶ One to many relationships in the ICAT schema.
-
AttrAlias= {}¶ Map of alias names for attributes and relationships.
-
SortAttrs= None¶ List of attributes used for sorting. Uses Constraint if
None.
-
validate= None¶ Hook to add a pre create validation method.
This may be set to a function that expects one argument, the entity object. It will then be called before creating the object at the ICAT server. The function is expected to raise an exception (preferably ValueError) in case of validation errors.
-
classmethod
getInstance(obj)¶ Get the corresponding instance from an object.
-
classmethod
getInstances(objs)¶ Translate a list of objects into the list of corresponding instances.
-
classmethod
getAttrInfo(client, attr)¶ Get information on an attribute.
Query the EntityInfo of the entity from the ICAT server and retrieve information on one of the attributes from it.
Parameters: - client (
icat.client.Client) – the ICAT client. - attr (
str) – name of the attribute.
Returns: information on the attribute.
Raises: ValueError – if this is an abstract entity class or if no attribute by that name is found.
- client (
-
classmethod
getNaturalOrder(client)¶ Return a natural order for this class.
The order is a list of attributes suitable to be used in a ORDER BY clause in an ICAT search expression. The natural order is the one that is as close as possible to sorting the objects by the
__sortkey__(). It is based onConstraintor theSortAttrs, if the latter are defined. In any case, one to many relationships and nullable many to one relationships are removed from the list.
-
copy()¶ Return a shallow copy of this entity object.
Create a new object that has all attributes set to a copy of the corresponding values of this object. The relations are copied by reference, i.e. the original and the copy refer to the same related object.
>>> inv = client.new("investigation", name="Investigation A") >>> ds = client.new("dataset", investigation=inv, name="Dataset X") >>> cds = ds.copy() >>> cds.name 'Dataset X' >>> cds.investigation.name 'Investigation A' >>> cds.name = "Dataset Y" >>> cds.investigation.name = "Investigation B" >>> ds.name 'Dataset X' >>> ds.investigation.name 'Investigation B'
-
__sortkey__()¶ Return a key for sorting.
This is suitable to be passed as key to the
list.sort()method. E.g. if l is a list ofEntityobjects, you can sort it using:>>> l.sort(key=icat.entity.Entity.__sortkey__)
-
as_dict()¶ Return a dict with the object’s attributes.
-
getAttrType(attr)¶ Get the type of an attribute.
Query this object’s EntityInfo from the ICAT server and retrieve the type of one of the attributes from it. In the case of a relation attribute, this yields the BeanName of the related object.
Parameters: attr ( str) – name of the attribute.Returns: name of the attribute type. Return type: strRaises: ValueError – if no attribute by that name is found.
-
truncateRelations()¶ Delete all relationships.
Delete all attributes having relationships to other objects from this object. Note that this is a local operation on the object in the client only. It does not affect the corresponding object at the ICAT server. This is useful if you only need to keep the object’s attributes but not the (possibly large) tree of related objects in local memory.
-
getUniqueKey(keyindex=None)¶ Return a unique key.
The key is a string that is guaranteed to be unique for all entities in the ICAT. All attributes that form the uniqueness constraint must be set. A
icat.client.Client.search()oricat.client.Client.get()with the appropriate include clause may be required before calling this method.if keyindex is not
None, it is used as a cache of previously generated keys. It must be a dict that maps entity ids to the keys returned by previous calls ofgetUniqueKey()on other entity objects. The newly generated key will be added to this index.Parameters: keyindex ( dict) – cache of generated keys.Returns: a unique key. Return type: strRaises: DataConsistencyError – if a relation required in a constraint is not set.
-
create()¶ Call
icat.client.Client.create()to create the object in the ICAT.
-
update()¶ Call
icat.client.Client.update()to update the object in the ICAT.
-
get(query=None)¶ Call
icat.client.Client.get()to get the object from the ICAT.
-
icat.exception — Exception handling¶
This module defines Python counterparts of the exceptions raised by ICAT or IDS server, as well as exceptions raised in python-icat.
Helper¶
-
icat.exception.stripCause(e)¶ Try to suppress misleading context from an exception.
Deprecated since version 0.14.0: Not needed any more, embedded in
icat.exception._BaseExceptionnow.
-
exception
icat.exception._BaseException(*args)¶ Bases:
ExceptionAn exception that tries to suppress misleading context.
Exception Chaining and Embedded Tracebacks has been introduced with Python 3. Unfortunately the result is completely misleading most of the times. This class tries to strip the context from the exception traceback.
This is the common base class for for all exceptions defined in
icat.exception, it is not intented to be raised directly.
Exceptions raised by the ICAT or IDS server¶
-
exception
icat.exception.ServerError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionErrors raised by either the ICAT or the IDS server.
This is the common base class for
icat.exception.ICATErrorandicat.exception.IDSError, it is not intented to be raised directly.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ServerErrorBase class for the errors raised by the ICAT server.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATParameterError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorGenerally indicates a problem with the arguments made to a call.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATInternalError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorMay be caused by network problems, database problems, GlassFish problems or bugs in ICAT.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATPrivilegesError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorIndicates that the authorization rules have not matched your request.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATNoObjectError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorIs thrown when something is not found.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATObjectExistsError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorIs thrown when trying to create something but there is already one with the same values of the constraint fields.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATSessionError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorIs used when the sessionId you have passed into a call is not valid or if you are unable to authenticate.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATValidationError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATErrorMarks an exception which was thrown instead of placing the database in an invalid state.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATNotImplementedError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ICATError
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.ServerErrorBase class for the errors raised by the IDS server.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSBadRequestError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorAny kind of bad input parameter.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSDataNotOnlineError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorThe requested data are not on line.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSInsufficientPrivilegesError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorYou are denied access to the data.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSInsufficientStorageError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorThere is not sufficient physical storage or you have exceeded some quota.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSInternalError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorSome kind of failure in the server or in communicating with the server.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSNotFoundError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorThe requested data do not exist.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSNotImplementedError(error, status=None)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.IDSErrorUse of some functionality that is not supported by the implementation.
-
icat.exception.translateError(error, status=None, server='ICAT')¶ Translate an error from ICAT or IDS to the corresponding exception.
Exceptions raised by python-icat¶
-
exception
icat.exception.InternalError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionAn error that reveals a bug in python-icat.
-
exception
icat.exception.ConfigError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionError getting configuration options.
-
exception
icat.exception.QueryNullableOrderWarning(attr)¶ Bases:
WarningWarn about using a nullable relation for ordering.
-
exception
icat.exception.ClientVersionWarning(version=None, comment=None)¶ Bases:
WarningWarn that the version of the ICAT server is not supported by the client.
-
exception
icat.exception.ICATDeprecationWarning(feature, version=None)¶ Bases:
DeprecationWarningWarn about using an API feature that may get removed in future ICAT server versions.
-
exception
icat.exception.EntityTypeError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseException,TypeErrorAn invalid entity type has been used.
Changed in version 0.18.0: Inherit from
TypeError.
-
exception
icat.exception.VersionMethodError(method, version=None, service='ICAT')¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionCall of an API method that is not supported in the version of the server.
-
exception
icat.exception.SearchResultError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionA search result does not conform to what should have been expected.
-
exception
icat.exception.SearchAssertionError(query, assertmin, assertmax, num)¶ Bases:
icat.exception.SearchResultErrorA search result does not conform to an assertion.
This exception is thrown when the number of objects found on a search does not lie within the bounds of an assertion, see
icat.client.Client.assertedSearch().
-
exception
icat.exception.DataConsistencyError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionSome data is not consistent with rules or constraints.
-
exception
icat.exception.IDSResponseError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionThe response from the IDS was not what should have been expected.
-
exception
icat.exception.GenealogyError(*args)¶ Bases:
icat.exception._BaseExceptionError in the genealogy of entity types.
Deprecated since version 0.17: Only used in
icat.icatcheckwhich in turn is deprecated.
Exception hierarchy¶
The class hierarchy for the exceptions is:
Exception
+-- ServerError
| +-- ICATError
| | +-- ICATParameterError
| | +-- ICATInternalError
| | +-- ICATPrivilegesError
| | +-- ICATNoObjectError
| | +-- ICATObjectExistsError
| | +-- ICATSessionError
| | +-- ICATValidationError
| | +-- ICATNotImplementedError
| +-- IDSError
| +-- IDSBadRequestError
| +-- IDSDataNotOnlineError
| +-- IDSInsufficientPrivilegesError
| +-- IDSInsufficientStorageError
| +-- IDSInternalError
| +-- IDSNotFoundError
| +-- IDSNotImplementedError
+-- InternalError
+-- ConfigError
+-- TypeError
| +-- EntityTypeError
+-- VersionMethodError
+-- SearchResultError
| +-- SearchAssertionError
+-- DataConsistencyError
+-- IDSResponseError
+-- GenealogyError
+-- Warning
+-- QueryNullableOrderWarning
+-- ClientVersionWarning
+-- DeprecationWarning
+-- ICATDeprecationWarning
Here, Exception, TypeError, Warning, and
DeprecationWarning are build-in exceptions from the Python
standard library.
icat.ids — Provide the IDSClient class¶
This module defines the IDSClient class that
connects to an ICAT Data Service (IDS) as a client.
-
class
icat.ids.DataSelection(objs=None)¶ Bases:
objectA set of data to be processed by the ICAT Data Service.
This can be passed as the selection argument to
icat.ids.IDSClientmethod calls. The objs argument is passed to theextend()method.-
extend(objs)¶ Add objs to the DataSelection.
Parameters: objs ( dict,listoficat.entity.Entity, orDataSelection) – either a dict having some of the keys investigationIds, datasetIds, and datafileIds with a list of object ids as value respectively, or a list of entity objects, or another data selection.
-
-
class
icat.ids.IDSClient(url, sessionId=None, sslContext=None, proxy=None)¶ Bases:
objectA client accessing an ICAT Data Service.
The attribute sessionId must be set to a valid ICAT session id from the ICAT client.
-
ping()¶ Check that the server is alive and is an IDS server.
-
getApiVersion()¶ Get the version of the IDS server.
Note: the getApiVersion call has been added in IDS server version 1.3.0. For older servers, try to guess the server version from features visible in the API. Obviously this cannot always be accurate as we cannot distinguish server version with no visible API changes. In particular, versions older then 1.2.0 will always reported as 1.0.0. Nevertheless, the result of the guess should be fair enough for most use cases.
-
version()¶ Get the version of the IDS server.
Note: the version call has been added in IDS server version 1.8.0, deprecating getApiVersion at the same time. For older servers, we fall back to getApiVersion to emulate this call. Note furthermore that version returns a dict, while getApiVersion returns the plain version number as a string.
-
getIcatUrl()¶ Get the URL of the ICAT server connected to this IDS.
-
isReadOnly()¶ See if the server is configured to be readonly.
-
isTwoLevel()¶ See if the server is configured to use both main and archive storage.
-
getServiceStatus()¶ Return information about what the IDS is doing.
If all lists are empty it is quiet. To use this call, the user represented by the sessionId must be in the set of rootUserNames defined in the IDS configuration.
-
getSize(selection)¶ Return the total size of the datafiles.
-
getStatus(selection)¶ Return the status of data.
-
archive(selection)¶ Archive data.
-
restore(selection)¶ Restore data.
-
write(selection)¶ Write data.
-
reset(selection)¶ Reset data so that they can be queried again.
-
resetPrepared(preparedId)¶ Reset prepared data so that they can be queried again.
Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
reset()instead.
-
prepareData(selection, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False)¶ Prepare data for a subsequent
getData()call.
-
isPrepared(preparedId)¶ Check if data is ready.
Returns true if the data identified by the preparedId returned by a call to
prepareData()is ready.
-
getDatafileIds(selection)¶ Get the list of data file id corresponding to the selection.
-
getPreparedDatafileIds(preparedId)¶ Get the list of data file id corresponding to the prepared Id.
Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
getDatafileIds()instead.
-
getData(selection, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False, outname=None, offset=0)¶ Stream the requested data.
-
getDataUrl(selection, compressFlag=False, zipFlag=False, outname=None)¶ Get the URL to retrieve the requested data.
-
getPreparedData(preparedId, outname=None, offset=0)¶ Get prepared data.
Get the data using the preparedId returned by a call to
prepareData().Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
getData()instead.
-
getPreparedDataUrl(preparedId, outname=None)¶ Get the URL to retrieve prepared data.
Get the URL to retrieve data using the preparedId returned by a call to
prepareData().Deprecated since version 0.17.0: Call
getDataUrl()instead.
-
getLink(datafileId, username=None)¶ Return a hard link to a data file.
This is only useful in those cases where the user has direct access to the file system where the IDS is storing data. The caller is only granted read access to the file.
-
put(inputStream, name, datasetId, datafileFormatId, description=None, doi=None, datafileCreateTime=None, datafileModTime=None)¶ Put data into IDS.
Put the data in the inputStream into a data file and catalogue it. The client generates a checksum which is compared to that produced by the server to detect any transmission errors.
-
delete(selection)¶ Delete data.
-
icat.query — Provide the Query class¶
-
class
icat.query.Query(client, entity, attributes=None, aggregate=None, order=None, conditions=None, includes=None, limit=None, attribute=None)¶ Bases:
objectBuild a query to search an ICAT server.
The query uses the JPQL inspired syntax introduced with ICAT 4.3.0. It won’t work with older ICAT servers.
Parameters: - client (
icat.client.Client) – the ICAT client. - entity – the type of objects to search for. This may either
be an
icat.entity.Entitysubclass or the name of an entity type. - attributes – the attributes that the query shall return. See
the
setAttributes()method for details. - aggregate – the aggregate function to be applied in the
SELECT clause, if any. See the
setAggregate()method for details. - order – the sorting attributes to build the ORDER BY clause
from. See the
setOrder()method for details. - conditions – the conditions to build the WHERE clause from.
See the
addConditions()method for details. - includes – list of related objects to add to the INCLUDE
clause. See the
addIncludes()method for details. - limit – a tuple (skip, count) to be used in the LIMIT
clause. See the
setLimit()method for details. - attribute – alias for attributes, retained for compatibility. Deprecated, use attributes instead.
Raises: - TypeError – if entity is not a valid entity type or if both attributes and attribute are provided.
- ValueError – if any of the keyword arguments is not valid, see the corresponding method for details.
Changed in version 0.18.0: add support for queries requesting a list of attributes rather then a single one. Consequently, the keyword argument attribute has been renamed to attributes (in the plural).
-
setAttributes(attributes)¶ Set the attributes that the query shall return.
Parameters: attributes ( stror iterable ofstr) – the names of the attributes. This can either be a single name or a list of names. The result of the search will be a list with either a single attribute value or a list of attribute values respectively for each matching entity object. If attributes isNone, the result will be the list of matching objects instead.Raises: ValueError – if any name in attributes is not valid or if multiple attributes are provided, but the ICAT server does not support this. Changed in version 0.18.0: also accept a list of attribute names. Renamed from
setAttribute()tosetAttributes()(in the plural).
-
setAggregate(function)¶ Set the aggregate function to be applied to the result.
Note that the Query class does not verify whether the aggregate function makes any sense for the selected result. E.g. the SUM of entity objects or the AVG of strings will certainly not work in an ICAT search expression, but it is not within the scope of the Query class to reject such nonsense beforehand. Furthermore, “DISTINCT” requires icat.server 4.7.0 or newer to work. Again, this is not checked by the Query class.
Parameters: function ( str) – the aggregate function to be applied in the SELECT clause, if any. Valid values are “DISTINCT”, “COUNT”, “MIN”, “MAX”, “AVG”, “SUM”, orNone. “:DISTINCT”, may be appended to “COUNT”, “AVG”, and “SUM” to combine the respective function with “DISTINCT”.Raises: ValueError – if function is not valid.
-
setOrder(order)¶ Set the order to build the ORDER BY clause from.
Parameters: order (iterable or bool) – the list of the attributes used for sorting. A special value ofTruemay be used to indicate the natural order of the entity type. Any false value means no ORDER BY clause. Rather then only an attribute name, any item in the list may also be a tuple of an attribute name and an order direction, the latter being either “ASC” or “DESC” for ascending or descending order respectively.Raises: ValueError – if order contains invalid attributes that either do not exist or contain one to many relationships.
-
addConditions(conditions)¶ Add conditions to the constraints to build the WHERE clause from.
Parameters: conditions ( dict) – the conditions to restrict the search result. This must be a mapping of attribute names to conditions on that attribute. The latter may either be a string with a single condition or a list of strings to add more then one condition on a single attribute. If the query already has a condition on a given attribute, it will be turned into a list with the new condition(s) appended.Raises: ValueError – if any key in conditions is not valid.
-
addIncludes(includes)¶ Add related objects to build the INCLUDE clause from.
Parameters: includes (iterable of str) – list of related objects to add to the INCLUDE clause. A special value of “1” may be used to set (the equivalent of) an “INCLUDE 1” clause.Raises: ValueError – if any item in includes is not a related object.
-
setLimit(limit)¶ Set the limits to build the LIMIT clause from.
Parameters: limit ( tuple) – a tuple (skip, count).Raises: TypeError – if limit is not a tuple of two elements.
-
copy()¶ Return an independent clone of this query.
-
setAttribute(attribute)¶ Alias for
setAttributes().Deprecated since version 0.18.0: use
setAttributes()instead.
- client (
Special purpose modules¶
These modules will generally be used in particular cases only.
icat.eval — Evaluate expression in the context of an ICAT session¶
Evaluate a Python expression in the context of an ICAT session.
This module is intended to be run using the “-m” command line switch to Python. It adds an “-e” command line switch and evaluates the Python expression given as argument to it after having started an ICAT session. This allows one to run simple programs as one liners directly from the command line, as in:
# get all Dataset ids
$ python -m icat.eval -e 'client.search("Dataset.id")' -s root
[102284, 102288, 102289, 102293]
icat.dumpfile — Backend for icatdump and icatingest¶
This module provides the base classes
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReader and
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter that define the API and the
logic for reading and writing ICAT data files. The actual work is
done in file format specific modules that should provide subclasses
that must implement the abstract methods.
-
class
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReader(client, infile)¶ Bases:
objectBase class for backends that read a data file.
-
mode= 'r'¶ File mode suitable for the backend.
Subclasses should override this with either “rt” or “rb”, according to the mode required for the backend.
-
getdata()¶ Iterate over the chunks in the data file.
Yield some data object in each iteration. This data object is specific to the implementing backend and should be passed as the data argument to
getobjs_from_data().
-
getobjs_from_data(data, objindex)¶ Iterate over the objects in a data chunk.
Yield a new entity object in each iteration. The object is initialized from the data, but not yet created at the client.
-
getobjs(objindex=None)¶ Iterate over the objects in the data file.
Yield a new entity object in each iteration. The object is initialized from the data, but not yet created at the client.
Parameters: objindex ( dict) – a mapping from keys to entity objects, seeicat.client.Client.searchUniqueKey()for details. This serves as a cache of previously retrieved objects, used to resolve object relations. If this isNone, an internal cache will be used that is purged at the start of every new data chunk.
-
-
class
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter(client, outfile)¶ Bases:
objectBase class for backends that write a data file.
-
mode= 'w'¶ File mode suitable for the backend.
Subclasses should override this with either “wt” or “wb”, according to the mode required for the backend.
-
head()¶ Write a header with some meta information to the data file.
-
startdata()¶ Start a new data chunk.
If the current chunk contains any data, write it to the data file.
-
writeobj(key, obj, keyindex)¶ Add an entity object to the current data chunk.
-
finalize()¶ Finalize the data file.
-
writeobjs(objs, keyindex, chunksize=100)¶ Write some entity objects to the current data chunk.
The objects are searched from the ICAT server. The key index is used to serialize object relations in the data file. For object types that do not have an appropriate uniqueness constraint in the ICAT schema, a generic key is generated. These objects may only be referenced from the same chunk in the data file.
Parameters: - objs (
icat.query.Queryorstrorlist) –query to search the objects, either a Query object or a string. It must contain an appropriate include clause to include all related objects from many-to-one relations. These related objects must also include all informations needed to generate their unique key, unless they are registered in the key index already.
Furthermore, related objects from one-to-many relations may be included. These objects will then be embedded with the relating object in the data file. The same requirements for including their respective related objects apply.
As an alternative to a query, objs may also be a list of entity objects. The same conditions on the inclusion of related objects apply.
- keyindex (
dict) – cache of generated keys. It maps object ids to unique keys. See theicat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey()for details. - chunksize (
int) – tuning parameter, seeicat.client.Client.searchChunked()for details.
- objs (
-
writedata(objs, keyindex=None, chunksize=100)¶ Write a data chunk.
Parameters: - objs – an iterable that yields either queries to search
for the objects or object lists. See
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.writeobjs()for details. - keyindex (
dict) – cache of generated keys, seeicat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.writeobjs()for details. If this isNone, an internal index will be used. - chunksize (
int) – tuning parameter, seeicat.client.Client.searchChunked()for details.
- objs – an iterable that yields either queries to search
for the objects or object lists. See
-
-
icat.dumpfile.Backends= {}¶ A register of all known backends.
-
icat.dumpfile.register_backend(formatname, reader, writer)¶ Register a backend.
This function should be called by file format specific backends at initialization.
Parameters: - formatname (
str) – name of the file format that the backend implements. - reader – class for reading data files. Should be a subclass
of
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReader. - writer – class for writing data files. Should be a subclass
of
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.
- formatname (
-
icat.dumpfile.open_dumpfile(client, f, formatname, mode)¶ Open a data file, either for reading or for writing.
Note that depending on the backend, the file must either be opened in binary or in text mode. If f is a file object, it must have been opened in the appropriate mode according to the backend selected by formatname. The backend classes define a corresponding class attribute mode. If f is a file name, the file will be opened in the appropriate mode.
The subclasses of
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReaderandicat.dumpfile.DumpFileWritermay be used as context managers. This function is suitable to be used in thewithstatement.>>> with open_dumpfile(client, f, "XML", 'r') as dumpfile: ... for obj in dumpfile.getobjs(): ... obj.create()
Parameters: - client (
icat.client.Client) – the ICAT client. - f – the object to read the data from or write the data to,
according to mode. What object types are supported depends on
the backend. All backends support at least a file object or
the name of file. The special value of “-” may be used as an
alias for
sys.stdinorsys.stdout. - formatname (
str) – name of the file format that has been registered by the backend. - mode (
str) – either “r” or “w” to indicate that the file should be opened for reading or writing respectively.
Returns: an instance of the appropriate class. This is either the reader or the writer class, according to the mode, that has been registered by the backend.
Raises: ValueError – if the format is not known or if the mode is not “r” or “w”.
- client (
ICAT data files¶
Data files are partitioned in chunks. This is done to avoid having
the whole file, e.g. the complete inventory of the ICAT, at once in
memory. The problem is that objects contain references to other
objects (e.g. Datafiles refer to Datasets, the latter refer to
Investigations, and so forth). We keep an index of the objects in
order to resolve these references. But there is a memory versus time
tradeoff: we cannot keep all the objects in the index, that would
again mean the complete inventory of the ICAT. And we can’t know
beforehand which object is going to be referenced later on, so we
don’t know which one to keep and which one to discard from the index.
Fortunately we can query objects we discarded once back from the ICAT
server with icat.client.Client.searchUniqueKey(). But this is
expensive. So the strategy is as follows: keep all objects from the
current chunk in the index and discard the complete index each time a
chunk has been processed. This will work fine if objects are mostly
referencing other objects from the same chunk and only a few
references go across chunk boundaries.
Therefore, we want these chunks to be small enough to fit into memory, but at the same time large enough to keep as many relations between objects as possible local in a chunk. It is in the responsibility of the writer of the data file to create the chunks in this manner.
The objects that get written to the data file and how this file is
organized is controlled by lists of ICAT search expressions, see
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.writeobjs(). There is some degree
of flexibility: an object may include related objects in an
one-to-many relation, just by including them in the search expression.
In this case, these related objects should not have a search
expression on their own again. For instance, the search expression
for Grouping may include UserGroup. The UserGroups will then be
embedded in their respective grouping in the data file. There should
not be a search expression for UserGroup then.
Objects related in a many-to-one relation must always be included in the search expression. This is also true if the object is indirectly related to one of the included objects. In this case, only a reference to the related object will be included in the data file. The related object must have its own list entry.
Internal modules¶
These modules are used internally by python-icat, but most users will not need to care about them.
icat.authinfo — Provide the AuthenticatorInfo class¶
Note
This module is used internally in icat.config. Most users
will not need to use it directly or even care about it.
-
class
icat.authinfo.AuthenticatorInfo(authInfo)¶ Bases:
collections.abc.SequenceA wrapper around the authenticator info as returned by the ICAT server.
Parameters: authInfo ( list) – authenticator information from the ICAT server as returned byicat.client.Client.getAuthenticatorInfo().-
getAuthNames()¶ Return a list of authenticator names available at the ICAT server.
-
getCredentialKeys(auth=None, hide=None)¶ Return credential keys.
Parameters: - auth (
str) – authenticator name. If given, return only the credential keys for this authenticator. IfNone, return credential keys for all authenticators. - hide (
bool) – if given, return either only the hidden or the non-hidden credential keys, according to the provided value. IfNone, return credential keys for all authenticators.
Returns: names of credential keys.
Return type: Raises: KeyError – if auth is provided, but no authenticator by that name is defined in the authenticator information.
Changed in version 0.17.0: add default value for parameter auth.
- auth (
-
-
class
icat.authinfo.LegacyAuthenticatorInfo¶ Bases:
objectAuthenticatorInfo for old ICAT server.
This is a dummy implementation to emulate AuthenticatorInfo for the case that the server does not support the
icat.client.Client.getAuthenticatorInfo()call.-
getAuthNames()¶ Return
None.
-
getCredentialKeys(auth=None, hide=None)¶ Return credential keys.
Dummy implementation, pretent that all authenticators expect username and password as credential keys, where password is marked as hidden.
Parameters: Returns: names of credential keys.
Return type: Changed in version 0.17.0: add default value for parameter auth.
-
icat.dumpfile_xml — XML data file backend¶
This module provides the XML backend for icat.dumpfile. See
the documentation of that module on how to read and write ICAT data
files.
-
class
icat.dumpfile_xml.XMLDumpFileReader(client, infile)¶ Bases:
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReaderBackend for reading ICAT data from a XML file.
This backend accepts a file object, a filename, or a XML tree object (
lxml.etree._ElementTree) as input. Note that the latter case requires by definition the complete input to be at once in memory. This is only useful if the input is small enough.-
mode= 'rb'¶ File mode suitable for this backend.
-
getdata_file()¶ Iterate over the chunks in the data file.
-
getdata_etree()¶ Iterate over the chunks from a XML tree object.
-
getobjs_from_data(data, objindex)¶ Iterate over the objects in a data chunk.
Yield a new entity object in each iteration. The object is initialized from the data, but not yet created at the client.
-
-
class
icat.dumpfile_xml.XMLDumpFileWriter(client, outfile)¶ Bases:
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriterBackend for writing ICAT data to a XML file.
-
mode= 'wb'¶ File mode suitable for this backend.
-
head()¶ Write a header with some meta information to the data file.
-
startdata()¶ Start a new data chunk.
If the current chunk contains any data, write it to the data file.
-
writeobj(key, obj, keyindex)¶ Add an entity object to the current data chunk.
-
finalize()¶ Finalize the data file.
-
icat.dumpfile_yaml — YAML data file backend¶
This module provides the YAML backend for icat.dumpfile. See
the documentation of that module on how to read and write ICAT data
files.
-
class
icat.dumpfile_yaml.YAMLDumpFileReader(client, infile)¶ Bases:
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReaderBackend for reading ICAT data from a YAML file.
-
mode= 'rt'¶ File mode suitable for this backend.
-
getdata()¶ Iterate over the chunks in the data file.
-
getobjs_from_data(data, objindex)¶ Iterate over the objects in a data chunk.
Yield a new entity object in each iteration. The object is initialized from the data, but not yet created at the client.
-
-
class
icat.dumpfile_yaml.YAMLDumpFileWriter(client, outfile)¶ Bases:
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriterBackend for writing ICAT data to a YAML file.
-
mode= 'wt'¶ File mode suitable for this backend.
-
head()¶ Write a header with some meta information to the data file.
-
startdata()¶ Start a new data chunk.
If the current chunk contains any data, write it to the data file.
-
writeobj(key, obj, keyindex)¶ Add an entity object to the current data chunk.
-
finalize()¶ Finalize the data file.
-
icat.dump_queries — Queries needed to dump the ICAT content¶
Note
This module is mostly intended as a helper for the icatdump script. Most users will not need to use it directly or even care about it.
The icatdump data is written in chunks, see the documentation of
icat.dumpfile for details why this is needed. The partition
used here is the following:
- One chunk with all objects that define authorization (User, Group, Rule, PublicStep).
- All static content in one chunk, e.g. all objects not related to individual investigations and that need to be present, before we can add investigations.
- The investigation data. All content related to individual investigations. Each investigation with all its data in one single chunk on its own.
- One last chunk with all remaining stuff (RelatedDatafile, DataCollection, Job).
The functions defined in this module each return a list of queries needed to fetch all objects to be included in one of these chunkes.
-
icat.dump_queries.getAuthQueries(client)¶ Return the queries to fetch all objects related to authorization.
-
icat.dump_queries.getStaticQueries(client)¶ Return the queries to fetch all static objects.
-
icat.dump_queries.getInvestigationQueries(client, invid)¶ Return the queries to fetch all objects related to an investigation.
-
icat.dump_queries.getOtherQueries(client)¶ Return the queries to fetch all other objects, e.g. not static and not directly related to an investigation.
icat.helper — A collection of internal helper routines¶
Note
This module is intended for the internal use in python-icat. Most users will not need to use it directly or even care about it.
-
icat.helper.simpleqp_quote(obj)¶ Simple quote in quoted-printable style.
-
icat.helper.simpleqp_unquote(qs)¶ Simple unquote from quoted-printable style.
-
icat.helper.parse_attr_val(avs)¶ Parse an attribute value list string.
Parse a string representing a list of attribute and value pairs in the form:
attrvaluestring ::= attrvalue | attrvalue '_' attrvaluestring attrvalue ::= attr '-' value value ::= simplevalue | '(' attrvaluestring ')' attr ::= [A-Za-z]+ simplevalue ::= [0-9A-Za-z=]+
Return a dict with the attributes as keys. In the case of an attrvaluestring in parenthesis, this string is set as value in the dict without any further processing.
-
icat.helper.parse_attr_string(s, attrtype)¶ Parse the string representation of an entity attribute.
Note: for Date we use the parser from
suds.sax.date. If this is the original Suds version, this parser is buggy and might yield wrong results. But the same buggy parser is also applied by Suds internally for the Date values coming from the ICAT server. Since we are mainly interested to compare with values from the ICAT server, we have a fair chance that this comparision nevertheless yields valid results.
-
icat.helper.ms_timestamp(dt)¶ Convert
datetime.datetimeor string to timestamp in milliseconds since epoch.
icat.listproxy — Provide the ListProxy class¶
Note
This module is mostly intended for the internal use in python-icat. Most users will not need to use it directly or even care about it.
-
class
icat.listproxy.ListProxy(target)¶ Bases:
collections.abc.MutableSequenceA list that acts as a proxy to another list.
ListProxy mirrors a target list: all items are stored in the target and fetched back from the target on request. In all other aspects, ListProxy tries to mimic as close as possible the behavior of an ordinary list.
This class tries to be a minimal working implementation. Methods like
append()andextent()have deliberately not been implemented here. These operations fall back on the versions inherited fromcollections.MutableSequencethat are based on the elementary methods. This may be less efficient then proxying the operations directly to the target, but this way its easier to override the elementary methods.>>> l = [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 ] >>> lp = ListProxy(l) >>> lp [0, 1, 2, 3, 4] >>> lp[2] 2 >>> lp[2:4] [2, 3] >>> lp == l True >>> lp < l False >>> l < lp False >>> lp < [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 0] True >>> [0, 1, 2, 3, 3] > lp False >>> lp[2:4] = ["two", "three"] >>> lp [0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4] >>> l [0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4] >>> lp *= 2 >>> l [0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4, 0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4] >>> del lp[5:] >>> l [0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4] >>> lp += ['...', 'and', 'so', 'on'] >>> l [0, 1, 'two', 'three', 4, '...', 'and', 'so', 'on'] >>> l[0:] = [ 1, 'b', 'iii' ] >>> ll = [ 'x', 'y' ] >>> lp + ll [1, 'b', 'iii', 'x', 'y'] >>> ll + lp ['x', 'y', 1, 'b', 'iii'] >>> lp * 3 [1, 'b', 'iii', 1, 'b', 'iii', 1, 'b', 'iii']
-
insert(index, value)¶ S.insert(index, value) – insert value before index
-
icat.sslcontext — Helper functions and classes related to SSL contexts¶
Note
This module is mostly intended for the internal use in python-icat. Most users will not need to use it directly or even care about it.
-
icat.sslcontext.create_ssl_context(verify=True, cafile=None, capath=None)¶ Set up the SSL context.
Obsolete modules¶
These modules are deprecated and will be removed from future version of python-icat.
icat.cgi — Common Gateway Interface support¶
This module provides tools for writing CGI scripts acting as ICAT clients.
Deprecated since version 0.13: This module is deprecated and will be removed in version 1.0.
-
class
icat.cgi.SessionCookie¶ Bases:
http.cookies.SimpleCookieA cookie to store an ICAT session id.
Extend the parent class by the attribute sessionId. Setting this attribute will set the session id in the cookie, getting it will retrieve its value from the cookie.
-
class
icat.cgi.Session(url, cookieName='ICATSESSIONID', cookiePath='/', secure=True)¶ Bases:
objectA persisting ICAT session.
Manage an ICAT session that persist over the life time of the script. The session id is stored in a
icat.cgi.SessionCookie.-
isActive()¶ Check whether there is an active session.
-
login(auth, username, password)¶ Log in with username and password and start a session.
-
logout()¶ Log out and terminate the session.
-
icat.icatcheck — Check compatibility with the ICAT server¶
Note
This module provides tests to check the compatibility of the client with the WSDL description got from the ICAT server. It is mainly useful for the package maintainer.
Deprecated since version 0.17: This module is deprecated and will be removed in version 1.0.
-
class
icat.icatcheck.ICATChecker(client)¶ Bases:
objectProvide checks for the ICAT schema from a given server.
Check that the entities defined in the ICAT client are in sync with the WSDL schema got from the ICAT server.
-
gettypes()¶ Return a list of the types defined in the WSDL.
-
getentities()¶ Search for entities defined at the server.
Return a dict with type names as keys and EntityInfo objects as values.
-
check()¶ Check consistency of the ICAT client with the server schema.
Report any abnormalities as warnings to the logger. Returns the number of warnings emitted.
-
checkExceptions()¶ Check consistency of exceptions.
Check that all icatExceptionTypes defined in the WSDL have a corresponding exception class defined in icat.exception. Report missing exceptions as a warning to the logger. Return the number of warnings emitted.
-
pythonsrc(genealogyrules=None, baseclassname='Entity')¶ Generate Python source code matching the ICAT schema.
Generate source code for a set of classes that match the entity info found at the server. The source code is returned as a string.
The Python classes are created as a hierarchy. It is assumed that there is one abstract base type which is the root of the genealogy tree. In the case of the ICAT 4.2.* schema, this assumptions holds, the base is
suds.sudsobject.entityBaseBean.Entity classes having children in the hierarchy are assumed to be abstract. In this case the attribut
icat.entity.Entity.BeanNameis set toNone.Parameters: - genealogyrules (
listoftuple) – define the rules for the genealogy tree. It must be a list of tuples, each having two elements, a regular expression and the name of a parent type. Each type matching the regular expression is assumed to be derived from the parent. The first match in the list wins. The last element in the list should be a default rule of the form(r'','base'), where base is the name of the root. - baseclassname (
str) – the name for the base class at the root of the genealogy tree that shall be used in the Python output.
Returns: Python source.
Return type: Raises: GenealogyError – if the genealogy tree defined by genealogyrules is not consistent.
- genealogyrules (
-
Command line scripts¶
This section provides a reference for the command line scripts that are alongside with python-icat.
icatdump¶
Synopsis¶
icatdump [standard options] [-o FILE] [-f FORMAT]
Description¶
This script queries the content from an ICAT server and serializes
into a flat file. The format of that file depends on the backend that
can be selected with the --format option.
Options¶
The configuration options may be set in the command line or in a configuration file. Some options may also be set in the environment.
Specific Options¶
The following options are specific to icatdump:
-
-oFILE,--outputfileFILE¶ Set the output file name. If the value - is used, the output will be written to standard output. This is also the default.
-
-fFORMAT,--formatFORMAT¶ Select the backend to use and thus the output file format. XML and YAML backends are available.
Standard Options¶
The following options needed to connect the ICAT service are common for most python-icat scripts:
-
-h,--help¶ Display a help message and exit.
-
-cCONFIGFILE,--configfileCONFIGFILE¶ Name of a configuration file.
-
-sSECTION,--configsectionSECTION¶ Name of a section in the configuration file. If set, the values in this configuration section will be applied to define other options.
-
-wURL,--urlURL¶ URL of the ICAT server. This should point to the web service descriptions. If the URL has no path component, a default path will be added.
-
--no-check-certificate¶ Do not verify the ICAT server’s TLS certificate. This is only relevant if the URL set with
--urluses HTTPS. It is mostly only useful for connecting a test server that does not have a trusted certificate.
-
--http-proxyHTTP_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for http requests.
-
--https-proxyHTTPS_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for https requests.
-
--no-proxyNO_PROXY¶ Comma separated list of exclusions for proxy use.
-
-aAUTH,--authAUTH¶ Name of the authentication plugin to use for login to the ICAT server.
-
-uUSERNAME,--userUSERNAME¶ The ICAT user name.
-
-pPASSWORD,--passPASSWORD¶ The user’s password. Will prompt for the password if not set.
-
-P,--prompt-pass¶ Prompt for the password. This is mostly useful to override a password set in the configuration file.
Known Issues and Limitations¶
- IDS is not supported: the script only dumps the meta data stored in the ICAT, not the content of the files stored in the IDS.
- The script will only writes objects that the user connecting ICAT has read permissions for. The script may need to connect as the ICAT root user in order to get the full content.
- The following items are deliberately not included in the output:
- Log objects (ICAT server versions older then 4.7.0),
- The attributes
id,createId,createTime,modId, andmodTimeof any object.
- It is assumed that for each Dataset ds in the ICAT where
ds.sample is not NULL, the condition ds.investigation =
ds.sample.investigation holds. If this is not satisfied, this
script will fail with a
DataConsistencyError. - The partition of the data into chunks is static. It should rather be dynamic, e.g. chunks should be splitted if the number of objects in them grows too large.
- The content in the ICAT server must not be modified while this script is retrieving it. Otherwise the script may fail or the dumpfile be inconsistent.
- The script fails if the data contains any Study if the ICAT server version is older then 4.6.0. This is a bug in icat.server.
Environment Variables¶
-
ICAT_CFG Name of a configuration file, see
--configfile.
-
ICAT_CFG_SECTION Name of a section in the configuration file, see
--configsection.
-
ICAT_SERVICE URL of the ICAT server, see
--url.
-
http_proxy Proxy to use for http requests, see
--http-proxy.
-
https_proxy Proxy to use for https requests, see
--https-proxy.
-
no_proxy Exclusions for proxy use, see
--no-proxy.
-
ICAT_AUTH Name of the authentication plugin, see
--auth.
-
ICAT_USER ICAT user name, see
--user.
See also¶
- Section ICAT data files on the structure of the dump files.
- Section Predefined configuration variables on the standard options.
- The icatingest script.
icatingest¶
Synopsis¶
icatingest [standard options] [-i FILE] [-f FORMAT] [–upload-datafiles] [–datafile-dir DATADIR] [–duplicate OPTION]
Description¶
This script reads an ICAT data file and creates all objects found in
an ICAT server. The format of that file depends on the backend that
can be selected with the --format option.
Options¶
The configuration options may be set in the command line or in a configuration file. Some options may also be set in the environment.
Specific Options¶
The following options are specific to icatingest:
-
-iFILE,--inputfileFILE¶ Set the input file name. If the value - is used, the input will be read from standard input. This is also the default.
-
-fFORMAT,--formatFORMAT¶ Select the backend to use and thus the input file format. XML and YAML backends are available.
-
--upload-datafiles¶ If that flag is set, Datafile objects will not be created in the ICAT server directly, but a corresponding file will be uploaded to IDS instead.
-
--datafile-dirDATADIR¶ Directory to search for the files to be uploaded to IDS. This is only relevant if
--upload-datafilesis set. The default is the current working directory.
-
--duplicateOPTION¶ Set the behavior in the case that any object read from the input already exists in the ICAT server. Valid options are:
- THROW
- Throw an error. This is the default.
- IGNORE
- Skip the object read from the input.
- CHECK
- Compare all attributes from the input object with the already existing object in ICAT. Throw an error of any attribute differs.
- OVERWRITE
- Overwrite the existing object in ICAT, e.g. update it with all attributes set to the values found in the input object.
If
--upload-datafilesis set, this option will be ignored for Datafile objects which will then always raise an error if they already exist.
Standard Options¶
The following options needed to connect the ICAT service are common for most python-icat scripts:
-
-h,--help¶ Display a help message and exit.
-
-cCONFIGFILE,--configfileCONFIGFILE¶ Name of a configuration file.
-
-sSECTION,--configsectionSECTION¶ Name of a section in the configuration file. If set, the values in this configuration section will be applied to define other options.
-
-wURL,--urlURL¶ URL of the ICAT server. This should point to the web service descriptions. If the URL has no path component, a default path will be added.
-
--idsurlURL¶ URL of the IDS server. This is only relevant if
--upload-datafilesis set. If the URL has no path component, a default path will be added.
-
--no-check-certificate¶ Do not verify the ICAT server’s TLS certificate. This is only relevant if the URL set with
--urlor--idsurluses HTTPS. It is mostly only useful for connecting a test server that does not have a trusted certificate.
-
--http-proxyHTTP_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for http requests.
-
--https-proxyHTTPS_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for https requests.
-
--no-proxyNO_PROXY¶ Comma separated list of exclusions for proxy use.
-
-aAUTH,--authAUTH¶ Name of the authentication plugin to use for login to the ICAT server.
-
-uUSERNAME,--userUSERNAME¶ The ICAT user name.
-
-pPASSWORD,--passPASSWORD¶ The user’s password. Will prompt for the password if not set.
-
-P,--prompt-pass¶ Prompt for the password. This is mostly useful to override a password set in the configuration file.
Known Issues and Limitations¶
- The user running this script need to have create permission for all objects in the dump file. In the generic case of restoring the entire content on an empty ICAT server, the script must be run by the ICAT root user.
- A dump and restore of an ICAT will not preserve the attributes
id,createId,createTime,modId, andmodTimeof any object. As a consequence, access rules that are based on the values of these attributes will not work after a restore. - Dealing with duplicates, see
--duplicate, is only supported for single objects. If the object contains embedded related objects in one to many relationships that are to be created at once, the only allowed option to deal with duplicates is THROW.
Environment Variables¶
-
ICAT_CFG Name of a configuration file, see
--configfile.
-
ICAT_CFG_SECTION Name of a section in the configuration file, see
--configsection.
-
ICAT_SERVICE URL of the ICAT server, see
--url.
-
ICAT_DATA_SERVICE URL of the IDS server, see
--idsurl.
-
http_proxy Proxy to use for http requests, see
--http-proxy.
-
https_proxy Proxy to use for https requests, see
--https-proxy.
-
no_proxy Exclusions for proxy use, see
--no-proxy.
-
ICAT_AUTH Name of the authentication plugin, see
--auth.
-
ICAT_USER ICAT user name, see
--user.
See also¶
- Section ICAT data files on the structure of the dump files.
- Section Predefined configuration variables on the standard options.
- The icatdump script.
wipeicat¶
Synopsis¶
wipeicat [options]
Description¶
Delete all content from an ICAT server.
In order to avoid leaving orphan content in the IDS server behind, the
script first tries to delete all Datafiles having the
location attribute set from the IDS
server. If deleting the Datafiles succeeded, the remaing content is
deleted from ICAT in palatable chunks.
Options¶
The configuration options may be set in the command line or in a configuration file. Some options may also be set in the environment.
These options are needed to connect the ICAT service and are common for most python-icat scripts.
-
-h,--help¶ Display a help message and exit.
-
-cCONFIGFILE,--configfileCONFIGFILE¶ Name of a configuration file.
-
-sSECTION,--configsectionSECTION¶ Name of a section in the configuration file. If set, the values in this configuration section will be applied to define other options.
-
-wURL,--urlURL¶ URL of the ICAT server. This should point to the web service descriptions. If the URL has no path component, a default path will be added.
-
--no-check-certificate¶ Do not verify the ICAT server’s TLS certificate. This is only relevant if the URL set with
--urluses HTTPS. It is mostly only useful for connecting a test server that does not have a trusted certificate.
-
--http-proxyHTTP_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for http requests.
-
--https-proxyHTTPS_PROXY¶ Proxy to use for https requests.
-
--no-proxyNO_PROXY¶ Comma separated list of exclusions for proxy use.
-
-aAUTH,--authAUTH¶ Name of the authentication plugin to use for login to the ICAT server.
-
-uUSERNAME,--userUSERNAME¶ The ICAT user name.
-
-pPASSWORD,--passPASSWORD¶ The user’s password. Will prompt for the password if not set.
-
-P,--prompt-pass¶ Prompt for the password. This is mostly useful to override a password set in the configuration file.
Known Issues with old IDS Versions¶
The recommended version of the IDS server is 1.6.0 or newer. The script does not take any particular measure to work around issues in servers older than that. In particular, the script mail fail or leave rubbish behind in the following situations:
- The IDS server is older then 1.6.0 and there is any Dataset with many Datafiles, see IDS Issue #42.
- The IDS server is older then 1.3.0 and restoring of any Dataset takes a significant amount of time, see IDS Issue #14.
The script does however take care not trying to delete any Datafile
having a NULL location attribute in
order to work around IDS Issue #63 in IDS server older then 1.9.0.
Environment Variables¶
-
ICAT_CFG Name of a configuration file, see
--configfile.
-
ICAT_CFG_SECTION Name of a section in the configuration file, see
--configsection.
-
ICAT_SERVICE URL of the ICAT server, see
--url.
-
http_proxy Proxy to use for http requests, see
--http-proxy.
-
https_proxy Proxy to use for https requests, see
--https-proxy.
-
no_proxy Exclusions for proxy use, see
--no-proxy.
-
ICAT_AUTH Name of the authentication plugin, see
--auth.
-
ICAT_USER ICAT user name, see
--user.
Changelog¶
0.18.1 (2021-04-13)¶
0.18.0 (2021-03-29)¶
New features¶
- #76, #78: add client side support for searching for multiple
fields introduced in icat.server 4.11.0. Add support for building
the corresponding queries in the in class
icat.query.Query.
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
- Since
icat.query.Querynow also accepts a list of attribute names rather then only a single one, the corresponding keyword argument attribute has been renamed to attributes (in the plural). Accordingly, the methodicat.query.Query.setAttribute()has been renamed toicat.query.Query.setAttributes(). The old names are retained as aliases, but are deprecated.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- #79: fix an encoding issue in
icat.client.Client.apiversion, only relevant with Python 2. - #80: add
TypeErroras additional ancestor oficat.exception.EntityTypeError.
0.17.0 (2020-04-30)¶
New features¶
- #65: Add support for the extended IDS API calls
icat.ids.IDSClient.getSize()andicat.ids.IDSClient.getStatus()accepting a preparedId as introduced in ids.server 1.11.0. Also extend the methodsicat.ids.IDSClient.reset(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getDatafileIds(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getData(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getDataUrl(),icat.client.Client.getData(), andicat.client.Client.getDataUrl()to accept a preparedId in the place of a data selection. - #63: Set a default path in the URL for ICAT and IDS respectively.
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
- Drop support for ICAT 4.2.*, deprecated in 0.13.0.
- #61, #64: Review
icat.entities. The entity classes from the ICAT schema are now dynamically created based on the information gathered with theicat.client.Client.getEntityInfo()ICAT API call. Code that relied on the internals oficat.entitiessuch as the class hierarchy or that referenced any of the entity classes directly will need to be revisited. Note that common python-icat programs don’t need to do any of that. So it is assumed that most existing programs are not concerned. - Deprecate
icat.ids.IDSClient.resetPrepared(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getPreparedDatafileIds(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getPreparedData(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getPreparedDataUrl(),icat.client.Client.getPreparedData(), andicat.client.Client.getPreparedDataUrl(). Call the corresponding methods without Prepared in the name with the same arguments instead. - Deprecate support for Python 2 and Python 3.3.
- Deprecate module
icat.icatcheck. This module was not intended to be used in python-icat programs anyway.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- #68: wipeicat enters an infinite loop if Datafiles are missing from IDS storage.
- #19, #69: Review documentation and add tutorial.
- #62: Minor fixes in the error handling in setup.py.
- Fix icatdata-4.10.xsd:
Study.endDatewas erroneously not marked as optional. - #70: Fix several errors in the tests.
- #58: Use specific test data for different ICAT versions.
- #67, #71, #72: document the option to use suds-community instead of suds-jurko.
Misc¶
- Do not include the documentation in the source distribution. Rely on the online documentation (see link in the README.rst) instead.
0.16.0 (2019-09-26)¶
New features¶
- #59: Add support for sub-commands in
icat.config.
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
- Drop support for Python 2.6.
0.15.1 (2019-07-12)¶
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Issue #56: icatdump fails to include
Shift.instrument. - Issue #57:
icat.client.Client.searchChunked()still susceptible to LIMIT clause bug in icat.server (Issue icatproject/icat.server#128). - Call
yaml.safe_load()rather thenyaml.load(), fixing a deprecation warning from PyYAML 5.1.
0.15.0 (2019-03-27)¶
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
- Require pytest 3.1.0 or newer to run the test suite. Note that this pytest version in turn requires Python 2.6, 2.7, or 3.3 and newer.
- Drop support for Python 3.1 and 3.2. There is no known issue with these Python versions in python-icat (so far). But since we can’t test this any more, see above, we drop the claim to support them.
0.14.2 (2018-10-25)¶
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Add a hook to control internal diverting of
sys.errin theicat.configmodule. This is intentionally not documented as it goes deeply into the internals of this module and most users will probably not need it.
0.14.1 (2018-06-05)¶
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Fix a misleading error message if the IDS server returns an error for the Write API call.
0.14.0 (2018-06-01)¶
New features¶
- #45: Add support for the IDS Write API call introduced in ids.server 1.9.0.
- #46, #47: Add a
ìcat.client.Client.autoRefresh()method. The scripts icatdump and icatingest call this method periodically to prevent the session from expiring. - #48: Add support for an ordering direction qualifier in class
icat.query.Query. - #44: Add method
icat.entity.Entity.as_dict(). - #40: Add method
icat.client.Client.clone().
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
Deprecate function
icat.exception.stripCause().This was an internal helper function not really meant to be part of the API. The functionality has been moved in a base class of the exception hierarchy.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Add the
icat.ids.IDSClient.version()API call introduced in ids.server 1.8.0. - #41: Incomprehensible error messages with Python 3.
- #43:
icat.client.Client.logout()should silently ignoreicat.exception.ICATSessionError. - Minor changes in the error handling. Add new exception
icat.exception.EntityTypeError. - Documentation fixes.
0.13.1 (2017-07-12)¶
0.13.0 (2017-06-09)¶
New features¶
#11: Support discovery of info about available ICAT authenticators.
If supported by the ICAT server (icat.server 4.9.0 and newer), the
icat.configmodule queries the server for information on available authenticators and the credential keys they require for login. The configuration variables for these keys are then adapted accordingly. Note incompatible changes below.Review wipeicat. This was an example script, but is now promoted to be a regular utility script that gets installed.
#32: Add support for using aggregate functions in class
icat.query.Query.#30: Add a predefined config variable type
icat.config.cfgpath().#31: Add a flag to add the default variables to the
icat.config.Configconstructor (default: True).icat.dumpfile_xml.XMLDumpFileReaderalso accepts a XML tree object as input.Verify support for ICAT 4.9.0. Add new ICAT API method
icat.client.Client.getVersion().
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
As a consequence of the discovery of available authenticators, the workflow during configuration need to be changed. Until now, the beginning of a typical python-icat program would look like:
config = icat.config.Config() # Optionally, add custom configuration variables: # config.add_variable(...) conf = config.getconfig() client = icat.Client(conf.url, **conf.client_kwargs)
E.g. first the configuration variables are set up, then the configuration is applied and finally the
icat.client.Clientobject is created using the configuration values. With the discovery of authenticators, theicat.config.Configobject itself needs a workingicat.client.Clientobject in order to connect to the ICAT server and query the authenticator info. Theicat.client.Clientobject will now be created in theicat.config.Configconstructor and returned along with the configuration values byicat.config.Config.getconfig(). You will need to replace the code from above by:config = icat.config.Config() # Optionally, add custom configuration variables: # config.add_variable(...) client, conf = config.getconfig()
The derived configuration variable client_kwargs that was used to pass additional arguments from the configuration to the Client constructor is no longer needed and has been removed.
The optional argument args has been moved from the
icat.config.Config.getconfig()call to theicat.config.Configconstructor, retaining the same semantics. E.g. you must change in your code:config = icat.config.Config() conf = config.getconfig(args) client = icat.Client(conf.url, **conf.client_kwargs)
to:
config = icat.config.Config(args) client, conf = config.getconfig()
Deprecate support for ICAT 4.2.*.
Note that already now significant parts of python-icat require features from ICAT 4.3 such as the JPQL like query language. The only workaround is to upgrade your icat.server.
Deprecate module
icat.cgi.It is assumed that this has never actually been used in production. For web applications it is recommended to use the Python Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) rather then CGI.
Deprecate the predefined configuration variable configDir.
The main use case for this variable was to be substituted in the default value for the path of an additional configuration file. The typical usage was the definition of a configuration variable like:
config = icat.config.Config() config.add_variable('extracfg', ("--extracfg",), dict(help="Extra config file"), default="%(configDir)s/extra.xml", subst=True)
This set the default path for the extra config file to the same directory the main configuration file was found in. Using the new config variable type
icat.config.cfgpath()you can replace this by:config = icat.config.Config() config.add_variable('extracfg', ("--extracfg",), dict(help="Extra config file"), default="extra.xml", type=icat.config.cfgpath)
This will search the extra config file in all the default config directories, regardless where the main configuration file was found.
The fixes for #35 and #36 require some changes in the semantics in the f and the mode argument to
icat.dumpfile.open_dumpfile(). Most users will probably not notice the difference.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Changed the default for the
icat.config.Configconstructor argument ids fromFalseto"optional". - Improved
icat.client.Client.searchChunked(). This version is not susceptible to Issue icatproject/icat.server#128 anymore. - Move the management of dependencies of tests into a separate package pytest-dependency that is distributed independently.
- #34:
TypeErrorin theicat.client.Clientconstructor if setting the sslContext keyword argument. - #35:
io.UnsupportedOperationis raised ificat.dumpfile.open_dumpfile()is called with an in-memory stream. - #36:
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReaderandicat.dumpfile.DumpFileWritermust not close file. - #37:
TypeErroris raised when writing a YAML dumpfile toio.StringIO.
0.12.0 (2016-10-10)¶
New features¶
- Verify support for ICAT 4.8.0 and IDS 1.7.0.
- Add methods
icat.ids.IDSClient.reset()andicat.ids.IDSClient.resetPrepared(). - #28: Add support for searching for attributes in class
icat.query.Query.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- Sort objects in icatdump before writing them to the dump file. This keeps the order independent from the collation used in the ICAT database backend.
- #2: for Python 3.6 (expected to be released in Dec 2016) and
newer, use the support for chunked transfer encoding in the standard
lib. Keep our own implementation in module
icat.chunkedhttponly for compatibility with older Python versions. - Improved the example script wipeicat.
- Add an example script dumprules.py.
- Add missing schema definition for the ICAT XML data file format for ICAT 4.7.
- Fix an
AttributeErrorduring error handling.
0.11.0 (2016-06-01)¶
New features¶
Incompatible changes¶
- Remove the autoget argument from
icat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey(). Deprecated since 0.9.0.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- #21: configuration variable promptPass is ignored when set in the configuration file.
- #18: Documentation: missing stuff in the module index.
- #20: add test on compatibility with icat.server.
- #24, #25: test failures caused by different timezone settings of the test server.
- Use a separate module distutils_pytest to run the tests from setup.py.
icat.icatcheck: move checking of exceptions into a separate methodicat.icatcheck.ICATChecker.checkExceptions(). Do not report exceptions defined in the client, but not found in the schema.- Many fixes in the example script wipeicat.
- Fix a missing import in the icatexport.py example script.
- Somewhat clearer error messages for some special cases of
icat.exception.SearchAssertionError.
Misc¶
- Change license to Apache 2.0.
0.10.0 (2015-12-06)¶
New features¶
- Add a method
icat.entity.Entity.copy(). - Implement setting an INCLUDE 1 clause equivalent in class
icat.query.Query. - Add an optional argument includes to
icat.client.Client.searchMatching(). - Add a hook for a custom method to validate entity objects before creating them at the ICAT server.
- Add support for ids.server 1.5.0:
- Add
icat.ids.IDSClient.getDatafileIds()andicat.ids.IDSClient.getPreparedDatafileIds()calls. icat.ids.IDSClient.getStatus()allows sessionId to be None.
- Add
- Add new exception class
icat.exception.ICATNotImplementedErrorthat is supposed to be raised by the upcoming version 4.6.0 of icat.server.
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- #13:
icat.client.Client.searchChunked()raises exception if the query contains a percent character. - #15: icatdump raises
icat.exception.DataConsistencyErrorfor DataCollectionParameter. - #14:
icat.entity.Entity.__sortkey__()may raiseRuntimeError“maximum recursion depth exceeded”. - Allow a
icat.ids.DataSelectionto be created from (almost) any Iterator, not just aSequence. Store the object ids inicat.ids.DataSelectioninternally in asetrather then alist. - Add optional arguments objindex to
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileReader.getobjs()and keyindex toicat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.writedata()to allow the caller to control these internal indices. - Add optional argument chunksize to
icat.dumpfile.DumpFileWriter.writedata(). - The constructor of class
icat.query.Querychecks the version of the ICAT server and raises an error if too old. - The
icat.ids.IDSClient.getIcatUrl()call checks the version of the IDS server. - Some changes in the test suite, add more tests.
0.9.0 (2015-08-13)¶
New features¶
#4: Extend icatrestore to become a generic ingestion tool.
Rename icatrestore to icatingest.
Allow referencing of objects by attribute rather then by unique key in the input file for icatingest (only in the XML backend).
Allow adding references to already existing objects in the input file for icatingest (only in the XML backend).
Change the name of the root element in the input file for icatingest (and the output of icatdump) from icatdump to icatdata (only in the XML backend).
Implement upload of Datafiles to IDS rather then only creating the ICAT object from icatingest.
Implement handling of duplicates in icatingest. The same options (THROW, IGNORE, CHECK, and OVERWRITE) as in the import call in the ICAT restful interface are supported.
#1: add a test suite.
#3: use Sphinx to generate the API documentation.
Add method
icat.client.Client.searchMatching().Add the
icat.ids.IDSClient.getIcatUrl()call introduced with IDS 1.4.0.
Incompatible changes and deprecations¶
- The Lucene calls that have been removed in ICAT 4.5.0 are also removed from the client.
- Deprecate the use of the autoget argument in
icat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey().
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- #6:
icat.query.Query: adding a condition on a meta attribute fails. - #10: client.putData: IDSInternalError is raised if datafile.datafileCreateTime is set.
- Ignore import errors from the backend modules in icatingest and icatdump. This means one can use the scripts also if the prerequisites for some backends are not fulfilled, only the concerned backends are not available then.
- #5, compatibility with ICAT 4.5: entity ids are not guaranteed to be unique among all entities, but only for entities of the same type.
- #5, compatibility with ICAT 4.5:
icat.client.Client.getEntityInfo()also lists createId, createTime, modId, and modTime as attributes. This need to be taken into account inicat.icatcheck. - The last fix in 0.8.0 on the string representation operator
icat.query.Query.__str__()was not complete, the operator still had unwanted side effects. - Fix a bug in the handling of errors raised from the ICAT or the IDS server. This bug affected only Python 3.
- Add proper type checking and conversion for setting an attribute
that corresponds to a one to many relationship in class
icat.entity.Entity. Accept any iterable of entities as value. - #9: icatingest with duplicate=CHECK may fail when attributes are not strings. Note that this bug was only present in an alpha version, but not in any earlier release version.
- Source repository moved to Git. This gives rise to a few tiny
changes. To name the most visible ones: python2_6.patch is now auto
generated by comparing two source branches and must be applied with
-p1 instead of -p0, the format of the icat module variable
icat.__revision__has changed. - Review default exports of modules. Mark some helper functions as internal.
0.8.0 (2015-05-08)¶
New features¶
Enable verification of the SSL server certificate in HTTPS connections. Add a new configuration variable checkCert to control this. It is set to
Trueby default.Note that this requires either Python 2.7.9 or 3.2 or newer. With older Python version, this configuration option has no effect.
Add type conversion of configuration variables.
Add substituting the values of configuration variables in other variables.
Add another derived configuration variable configDir.
Default search path for the configuration file: add an appropriate path on Windows, add
/etc/icatand~/.config/icatto the path if not on Windows.Add icatexport.py and icatimport.py example scripts that use the corresponding calls to the ICAT RESTful interface to dump and restore the ICAT content.
The constructor of
icat.exception.ICATErrorand theicat.exception.translateError()function are now able to construct exceptions based on a dict such as those returned by the ICAT RESTful interface in case of an error.Unified handling of errors raised from the ICAT and the IDS server.
Incompatible changes¶
As a consequence of the unified handling of errors, the exception class hierarchy has been reviewed, with a somewhat more clear separation of exceptions raised by other libraries, exceptions raised by the server, and exceptions raised by python-icat respectively.
If you put assumptions on the exception hierarchy in your code, this might need a review. In particular,
icat.exception.IDSResponseErroris not derived fromicat.exception.IDSErrorany more.icat.exception.IDSServerErrorhas been removed.I.e., replace all references to
icat.exception.IDSServerErrorbyicat.exception.IDSErrorin your code. Furthermore, if you catchicat.exception.IDSErrorin your code with the intention to catch both, errors from the IDS server andicat.exception.IDSResponseErrorin one branch, replace:try: # ... except IDSError: # ...
by
try: # ... except (IDSError, IDSResponseError): # ...
Bug fixes and minor changes¶
- The
icat.query.Queryclass now checks the attributes referenced in conditions and includes for validity. - Fix a regression introduced with version 0.7.0 that caused non-ASCII characters in queries not to work.
- Fix
icat.exception.ICATErrorandicat.exception.IDSErrorto gracefully deal with non-ASCII characters in error messages. Add a common abstract base classicat.exception.ICATExceptionthat cares about this. - Fix: the string representation operator
icat.query.Query.__str__()should not modify the query object. - Cosmetic improvement in the formal representation operator
icat.query.Query.__repr__().
0.7.0 (2015-02-11)¶
New features¶
Add a module
icat.querywith a classicat.query.Querythat can be used to build ICAT search expressions. Instances of the class may be used in place of search expression strings where appropriate.Numerous examples on how to use this new class can be found in querytest.py in the examples.
Add a class method
icat.entity.Entity.getNaturalOrder()that returns a list of attributes suitable to be used in an ORDER BY clause in an ICAT search expression.Add a class method
icat.entity.Entity.getAttrInfo()that queries the EntityInfo from the ICAT server and extracts the information on an attribute.Add a method
icat.client.Client.getEntityClass()that returns theicat.entity.Entitysubclass corresponding to a name.Add a warning class
icat.exception.QueryNullableOrderWarning.Add an optional argument username to the
icat.ids.IDSClient.getLink()method.
0.6.0 (2014-12-15)¶
New features¶
Add support for ICAT 4.4.0: add new
icat.entity.Entitytype InvestigationGroup, role has been added to the constraint in InvestigationUser.Add new API method
icat.ids.IDSClient.getApiVersion()that will be introduced with the upcoming version 1.3.0 of IDS. This method may also be called with older IDS servers: if it is not available because the server does not support it yet, the server version is guessed from visible features in the API.icat.ids.IDSClientchecks the API version on init.Add new API methods
icat.ids.IDSClient.isReadOnly(),icat.ids.IDSClient.isTwoLevel(),icat.ids.IDSClient.getLink(), andicat.ids.IDSClient.getSize()introduced with IDS 1.2.0.Add no_proxy support. The proxy configuration variables, http_proxy, https_proxy, and no_proxy are set in the environment. [Suggested by Alistair Mills]
Rework the dump file backend API for icatdump and icatrestore. As a result, writing custom dump or restore scripts is much cleaner and easier now.
This may cause compatibility issues for users who either wrote their own dump file backend or for users who wrote custom dump or restore scripts, using the XML or YAML backends. In the first case, compare the old XML and YAML backends with the new versions and you’ll easily see what needs to get adapted. In the latter case, have a look into the new versions of icatdump and icatrestore to see how to use the new backend API.
Add method
icat.client.Client.searchChunked().Add method
icat.entity.Entity.getAttrType().
Incompatible changes¶
Move the group argument to method
icat.client.Client.createRules()to the last position and make it optional, having defaultNone.In the client code, replace:
client.createRules(group, crudFlags, what)
by
client.createRules(crudFlags, what, group)
The
icat.client.Client.putData()method returns the new Datafile object created by IDS rather then only its id.If you depend on the old behavior in the client code, replace:
dfid = client.putData(file, datafile)
by
df = client.putData(file, datafile) dfid = df.id
Minor changes and fixes¶
The
icat.client.Client.searchText()andicat.client.Client.luceneSearch()client method have been deprecated. They are destined to be dropped from the ICAT server or at least changed in version 4.5.0 and might get removed from python-icat in a future release as well.The methods now emit a deprecation warning when called. Note however that Python by default ignores deprecation warnings, so you won’t see this unless you switch them on.
Fixed overly strict type checking in the constructor arguments of
icat.ids.DataSelectionand as a consequence also in the arguments of the ICAT client methodsicat.client.Client.getData(),icat.client.Client.getDataUrl(),icat.client.Client.prepareData(), andicat.client.Client.deleteData(): now, anySequenceof entity objects will be accepted, in particular anicat.entity.EntityList.Change
icat.ids.IDSClient.archive()andicat.ids.IDSClient.restore()to not to return anything. While formally, this might be considered an incompatible change, these methods never returned anything meaningful in the past.Slightly modified the == and != operator for
icat.entity.Entity. Add aicat.entity.Entity.__hash__()method. The latter means that you will more likely get what you expect when you create a set oficat.entity.Entityobjects or use them as keys in a dict.The module
icat.evalnow only does its work (parsing command line arguments and connecting to an ICAT server) when called from the Python command line. When imported as a regular module, it will essentially do nothing. This avoids errors to occur when imported.setup.py raises an error with Python 2.6 if python2_6.patch has not been applied.
Add missing MANIFEST.in in the source distribution.
Remove the work around the Suds datetime value bug (setting the environment variable TZ to
UTC) fromicat. Instead, document it along with other known issues in the README.Minor fixes in the sorting of entity objects.
Add an optional argument args to
icat.config.Config.getconfig(). If set to a list of strings, it replacessys.argv. Mainly useful for testing.Add comparison operators to class
icat.listproxy.ListProxy.
0.5.1 (2014-07-07)¶
Add a module
icat.evalthat is intended to be run using the-mcommand line switch to Python. It allows to evaluate Python expressions within an ICAT session as one liners directly from the command line, as for example:# get all Dataset ids $ python -m icat.eval -e 'client.search("Dataset.id")' -s root [102284L, 102288L, 102289L, 102293L]Fix an issue in the error handling in the IDS client that caused an
urllib2.HTTPErrorto be raised instead of anicat.exception.IDSServerErrorin the case of an error from the IDS server and thus the loss of all details about the error reported in the reply from the server.Add specific exception classes for the different error codes raised by the IDS server.
Fix compatibility issue with Python 3.3 that caused the HTTP method to be set to
Nonein some IDS methods, which in turn caused an internal server error to be raised in the IDS server.Fix compatibility issues with Python 3.4: some methods have been removed from class
urllib.request.Requestwhich caused anAttributeErrorin theicat.ids.IDSClient.Fix: failed to connect to an ICAT server if it advertises a version number having a trailing “-SNAPSHOT” in
icat.client.Client.getApiVersion(). For compatibility, a trailing “-SNAPSHOT” will be replaced by “a1” in the client.apiversion attribute.Suppress misleading context information introduced with Python 3 (PEP 3134) from the traceback in some error messages. Unfortunately, the fix only works for Python 3.3 and newer.
Make example files compatible across Python versions without modifications, such as running 2to3 on them.
0.5.0 (2014-06-24)¶
Integrate an IDS client in the ICAT client.
Improved icatdump and icatrestore:
- Changed the logical structure of the dump file format which significantly simplified the scripts. Note that old dump files are not compatible with the new versions.
- Add support for XML dump files. A XML Schema Definition for the dump file format is provided in the doc directory.
The scripts are now considered to be legitimate tools (though still alpha) rather then mere examples. Consequently, they will be installed into the bin directory.
Implicitly set a one to many relation to an empty list if it is accessed but not present in an
icat.entity.Entityobject rather then raising anAttributeError. See ICAT Issue 112.Allow setting one to many relationship attributes and deletion of attributes in
icat.entity.Entity. Add methodicat.entity.Entity.truncateRelations(). Truncate dummy relations set by the factory in newly created entity objects.Cache the result from
icat.client.Client.getEntityInfo()in the client.Add a method
icat.entity.Entity.__sortkey__()that return a key that when used as a sorting key inlist.sort()allows any list of entity objects to have a well defined order. Sorting is based on the Constraint attributes. Add a class variableicat.entity.Entity.SortAttrsthat overrides this and will be set as a fall back for those entity classes that do not have a suitable Constraint.
0.4.0 (2014-02-11)¶
- Add support for the jurko fork of Suds and for Python 3.
- Add a new method
icat.client.Client.searchUniqueKey(). - Add an optional argument keyindex to method
icat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey()that is used as a cache of previously generated keys. Remove the argument addbean. It had been documented as for internal use only, so this is not considered an incompatible change. - Add a new exception
icat.exception.DataConsistencyError. Raise this inicat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey()if a relation that is required in a constraint is not set. - Rename
icat.exception.SearchResultErrortoicat.exception.SearchAssertionError. SearchResultError was a misnomer here, as this exception class is very specific toicat.client.Client.assertedSearch(). Add a new generic exception classicat.exception.SearchResultErrorand deriveicat.exception.SearchAssertionErrorfrom it. This way, the change should not create any compatibility problems in client programs. - Add a check in
icat.icatcheckthat theicat.exception.ICATErrorsubclasses are in sync with icatExceptionType as defined in the schema. - Bugfix: The code dealing with exceptions raised by the ICAT server did require all attributes in IcatException sent by the server to be set, although some of these attributes are marked as optional in the schema.
- Do not delete the Suds cache directory in
icat.client.Client.cleanup(). - Installation: python-icat requires Python 2.6 or newer. Raise an error if setup.py is run by a too old Python version.
- Move some internal routines in a separate module
icat.helper. - Greatly improved example scripts icatdump and icatrestore.
0.3.0 (2014-01-10)¶
Add support for ICAT 4.3.1. (Compatibility with ICAT 4.3.2 has also been tested but did not require any changes.)
Implement alias names for entity attributes. This facilitates compatibility of client programs to different ICAT versions. E.g. a client program may use rule.grouping regardless of the ICAT version, for ICAT 4.2.* this is aliased to rule.group.
Add a method
icat.client.Client.assertedSearch().Add a method
icat.entity.Entity.getUniqueKey().Add entity methods
Group.getUsers()andInstrument.getInstrumentScientists().WARNING, incompatible change!
Changed entity methods
Instrument.addInstrumentScientist()andInvestigation.addInvestigationUser()to not to create the respective user any more, but rather expect a list of existing users as argument. RenamedGroup.addUser(),Instrument.addInstrumentScientist(), andInvestigation.addInvestigationUser()toaddUsers(),addInstrumentScientists(), andaddInvestigationUsers()(note the plural “s”) respectively.In the client code, replace:
pi = investigation.addInvestigationUser(uid, fullName=userName, search=True, role="Principal Investigator")
by
pi = client.createUser(uid, fullName=userName, search=True) investigation.addInvestigationUsers([pi], role="Principal Investigator")
Work around a bug in the way SUDS deals with datetime values: set the local time zone to
UTC.Add example scripts icatdump and icatrestore.
0.2.0 (2013-11-18)¶
Rework internals of
icat.config.Bugfix:
icat.config.Configrequired a password to be set even if prompt for password was requested.Add support for configuration via environment variables.
Add support of HTTP proxy settings. [Suggested by Alistair Mills]
WARNING, incompatible change! The configuration read by
icat.configis not stored as attributes on theicat.config.Configobject itself, but rathericat.config.Config.getconfig()returns an object with these attributes set. This keeps the configuration values cleanly separated from the attributes of theicat.config.Configobject.In the client code, replace:
conf = icat.config.Config() conf.getconfig()
by
config = icat.config.Config() conf = config.getconfig()
Move
ConfigErrorfromicat.configtoicat.exception.Move
GenealogyErrorfromicat.icatchecktoicat.exception.Review export of symbols. Most client programs should only need to import
icatandicat.config.
0.1.0 (2013-11-01)¶
- Initial version