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Hi Nick
If you are really serious about pushing corrections to the Fabric/Python
documentation, you could just grab a random fabric 'Getting Started'
page and look at the first code line (more or less like I did below).
Since there are so many variations (2 pythons X 3 Fabrics = 6 possible
starting points), just specifying the environment of the first 'Hello
World' example would be a big help.
This is not so easy. With two possibilities of python and three
possibilities of the fabric library, there are six combinations of
starting points before the '>>> from fabric import Connection' line.
The documentation for fabric is quite good looking. However, looking at
Fabric Overview and Tutorial
(http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.14/tutorial.html), the 5th line into that
document recommends looking at the 'usage documentation'
(http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.14/index.html#usage-docs). This is a short
page and on the 4th line it recommends looking at the Overview and
Tutorial (http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.14/tutorial.html), which of
course is the page I just came from. This 'going in circles' is a
metaphor for a lot of the fabric documentation.
----------
Ok, I'm cheating now. I talked with my son for awhile this morning. He
has several remote deployments going in Europe - all using Fabric. I
mentioned that when I put in the @task decorator as you had recommended,
I got an error complaining about "TypeError: Tasks must have an initial
Context argument!". This was a new error for me!!!
My son explained that I needed a few lines at the top of the fabfile.py
to define the environment 'Context' where the command (hello world) will
execute. I said I already was using virtualenv and had the (env) in
front of my shell prompt.
He said that the 'env' I was using was just for Python, not for Fabric.
Fabric needs an *Additional* environment ('Context') set up. In the
Getting Started document, there is no mention of 'Context' prior to the
first >>> code line.
With that new clue, I scrambled off into Google with a new series of
searches - looking for 'Context' in combination with fabric, python, etc.
Many years ago, Niklaus Wirth would insert special tags around code
segments in his book text - so the whole text could be parsed and the
code segments compiled to test for errors. I don't think this trick is
used any more... Swiss perfectionism is needed more than ever.
Python syntax is not a problem. It is similar to Occam, which appeared 8
years before Python. (send instead of save..)
On 11/23/18 4:46 PM, Nick Timkovich wrote:
Yeah, the >>> implies you're at the Python REPL, and the page I linked
you to is a few pages into learning to use Fabric; so it's going to
assume you installed the library. If you already know Tcl/Expect, I'm
sure you can bang out a script to do your task at hand, and if you
need it now and don't have time to pick up Python and Fabric on top of
it, that sounds like your best option.
When you get some spare time, there are a bunch of great tutorials
that can help you with the syntax (which may be easy), and also how
Python is loading/running scripts/packages/modules (which is usually
less obvious), which Fabric then uses to find a 'fabfile' package. I
haven't heard of Tidelift, but yeah, I feel your pain that a lot
of training sites which were once free are now pay-only (or very
expertly hide the free options, *coughcodecademycough*). Fortunately,
the gigantic popularity of Python means new, free content is always
being created, so some searching may help (I'm hesitant to cite
anything in particular because I haven't looked at any recently)
I was curious what examples/documentation you were following along
with originally, however, because it seemed incomplete, even for the
3-4 lines that you had. It would be nice to correct it so others
aren't misled in the future.
On Fri, Nov 23, 2018 at 11:39 AM Bob Gustafson <bob...@rcn.com
<mailto:bob...@rcn.com>> wrote:
Hi Nick
Yes, 'incomplete' is a charitable description.
I have zit knowledge of python. Perhaps this has been accidental
good luck. My favorite languages over the decades have been
Fortransit, Pascal, Ruby, and lately Nim.
Using your linked example ('Getting Started'..), starting with the
first code line:
>>> from fabric import Connection
There seems to be a lot that is assumed to have been done by the
reader. The >>> probably means that the reader has already typed
'python' to jump into an interactive Python session, but this is
not mentioned.
Also, just typing 'python' is not sufficient, as the following
lines may not work under Python 2.7 or Python 3.7. Which Python is
invoked depends on what has been typed before.
Also, 'fabric' is used in the code line. This library must have
been loaded or the line will not work. Again, loading fabric
beforehand is not mentioned. Also 'fabric' comes in several
versions <2, 2, and a version not recommended - 3.
I see from the libraries, and my experience with Sage, that lots
of good things have been done with Python. However, the state of
python documentation available on the internet leaves a lot
unsaid. Perhaps it is all a game to get new users to buy a
subscription to Tidelift.
At this point, for me, coding up 'expect' and fabric in Nim seems
easier than continuing this frustration.
Best regards
Bob G
On 11/22/18 9:04 PM, Nick Timkovich wrote:
For the `fab` tool to pick up functions in your fabfile
module/package as tasks, you need to decorate them with the @task
decorator (specifically fabric.task). See
http://docs.fabfile.org/en/2.4/getting-started.html#addendum-the-fab-command-line-tool
What documentation are you following? It sounds fairly incomplete
and could be fixed.
Nick
On Thu, Nov 22, 2018 at 2:06 PM Bob Gustafson <bob...@rcn.com
<mailto:bob...@rcn.com>> wrote:
I am running on a Mac air with Mojave os 10.14.1.
I installed python with homebrew
Also using virtualenv and the folder fabric-test
cd fabric-test
air:fabric-test bobgus$ ls
env fabfile.py
air:fabric-test bobgus$ source env/bin/activate
(env) air:fabric-test bobgus$ which python
/Users/bobgus/fabric-test/env/bin/python
(env) air:fabric-test bobgus$ python -V
Python 3.7.0
(env) air:fabric-test bobgus$ fab -V
Fabric 2.4.0
Paramiko 2.4.2
Invoke 1.2.0
(env) air:fabric-test bobgus$ cat fabfile.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
def welcome():
print("Welcome to fabric running on python 3")
def uptime():
run("uptime")fab
--------------------- testing -------
(env) air:fabric-test bobgus$ fab uptime
No idea what 'uptime' is!
(env air:fabric-test bobgus$ fab welcome
No idea what 'welcome' is!
--------------------------------------
I must be doing something wrong here..
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