Query expressions

Queries provide syntactic sugar for expressions inside nodes. For instance:

from deployer.query import Q

class MyNode(Node):
    do_something = True

    class MyChildNode(Node):
        do_something = Q.parent.do_something

        def setup(self):
            if self.do_something:
                ...
                pass

Technically, such a Query object uses the descriptor protocol. This way, it acts like any python property, and is completely transparent. The equivalent of Q.parent.do_something is:

@property
def do_something(self):
    return self.parent.do_something

More examples

A query can address the attribute of an inner node. When the property attribute_of_a in the example below is retrieved, the query executes and accesses the inner node A in the background.

class Root(Node):
    class A(Node):
        attribute = 'value'

    attribute_of_a = Q.A.attribute

    def action(self):
        if self.attribute_of_a == 'value':
            do_something(...)

A query can also call a function. The method get_url is called in the background.

class Root(Node):
    class A(Node):
        def get_url(self, domain):
            return 'http://%s' % domain

    url_of_a = Q.A.get_url('example.com')

    def print_url(self):
        print self.url_of_a

Note

Please make sure that a query can execute without side effects. This means, that a query should never execute a command that changes something on a host. Consider it read-only, like the getter of a property.

(This is mainly a convension, but could result in unexpected results otherwise.)

A query can even do complex calculations:

from deployer.query import Q

class Root(Node):
    class A(Node):
        length = 4
        width = 5

    # Multiply
    size = Q.A.length * Q.A.width

    # Operator priority
    size_2 = (Q.A.length + 1) * Q.A.width

    # String interpolation
    size_str = Q('The size is %s x %s') % (Q.A.height, Q.A.width)

Note

Python does not support overloading the and, or and not operators. You should use the bitwise equivalents &, | and ~ instead.