Class Overview

Class Structure

Here’s the overview of the essential classes used in the tmt project. It should help you to get quickly started and better understand the relation between the individual classes.

Basic

The Common class is the parent of most of the available classes, it provides common methods for logging, running commands and workdir handling. The _CommonBase class is an actual root of the class tree, makes sure the inheritance works correctly. The Core class together with its child classes Test, Plan and Story cover the Metadata Specification:

_CommonBase
└── Common
    ├── Core
    │   ├── Plan
    │   ├── Story
    │   └── Test
    ├── Clean
    ├── Guest
    ├── Phase
    ├── Run
    ├── Status
    ├── Step
    └── Tree

Phases

Actions performed during a normal step and plugins for individual step:

Phase
├── Action
│   ├── Login
│   └── Reboot
└── BasePlugin
    ├── GuestlessPlugin
    │   ├── DiscoverPlugin
    │   │   ├── DiscoverFmf
    │   │   └── DiscoverShell
    │   ├── ProvisionPlugin
    │   │   ├── ProvisionArtemis
    │   │   ├── ProvisionConnect
    │   │   ├── ProvisionLocal
    │   │   ├── ProvisionPodman
    │   │   └── ProvisionTestcloud
    │   └── ReportPlugin
    │       ├── ReportDisplay
    │       ├── ReportHtml
    │       ├── ReportJUnit
    │       ├── ReportPolarion
    │       └── ReportReportPortal
    └── Plugin
        ├── ExecutePlugin
        │   └── ExecuteInternal
        │       └── ExecuteUpgrade
        ├── FinishPlugin
        │   ├── FinishAnsible
        │   └── FinishShell
        └── PreparePlugin
            ├── PrepareAnsible
            │   └── FinishAnsible
            ├── PrepareInstall
            └── PrepareShell

Steps

A brief overview of all test steps:

Step
├── Discover
├── Provision
├── Prepare
├── Execute
├── Finish
└── Report

Containers used for storing configuration data for individual step plugins:

DataContainer
└── SpecBasedContainer, SerializableContainer
    ├── FmfId
    │   └── DependencyFmfId
    ├── Link
    ├── Links
    └── StepData
        ├── DiscoverStepData
        │   ├── DiscoverFmfStepData
        │   └── DiscoverShellData
        ├── ExecuteStepData
        │   ├── ExecuteInternalData
        │   └── ExecuteUpgradeData
        ├── FinishStepData
        │   └── FinishShellData
        ├── PrepareStepData
        │   ├── PrepareAnsibleData
        │   ├── PrepareInstallData
        │   └── PrepareShellData
        ├── ProvisionStepData
        │   ├── ProvisionArtemisData
        │   ├── ProvisionConnectData
        │   ├── ProvisionLocalData
        │   ├── ProvisionPodmanData
        │   └── ProvisionTestcloudData
        └── ReportStepData
            ├── ReportHtmlData
            ├── ReportJUnitData
            ├── ReportPolarionData
            └── ReportReportPortalData

Guests

Guests provisioned for test execution:

Guest
├── GuestContainer
├── GuestLocal
└── GuestSsh
    ├── GuestArtemis
    └── GuestTestcloud

Data related to provisioned guests:

GuestData
├── GuestSshData
│   ├── ArtemisGuestData
│   ├── ConnectGuestData
│   └── TestcloudGuestData
└── PodmanGuestData

Attributes

Hierarchy

Object hierarchy is following: Run -> Plans -> Steps -> Plugins, where the Run is on the top of this hierarchy. The objects have the parent attribute, that is pointing to the parent in which the current instance is contained.

Nodes, Trees

The node attribute of Test, Plan and Story instances references the original leaf node of the fmf metadata tree from which the respective test, plan or story have been created.

In a similar way, the tree property of the Tree instance points to the original fmf.Tree from which it was initialized.

Keys, Fields, Options

Configuration options appear throughout the code in several forms, here’s a summary of the differences and naming:

key: a config input coming from the fmf files, consistently using dashes, example: some-thing
field: defined by the tmt.utils.field() helper, is a python attribute, using underscores, example: some_thing
option: coming from the command line, defined using the tmt.options.option() helper, includes the -- prefix, example: --some-thing

Class Conversions

Various internal objects and classes often need to be converted from their Python nature to data that can be saved, loaded or exported in different form. To facilitate these conversions, three families of helper methods are provided, each with its own set of use cases.

`to_spec`/`to_minimal_spec`/`from_spec`

This family of methods works with tmt specification, i.e. raw user-provided data coming from fmf files describing plans, tests, stories, or from command-line options. from_spec() shall be called to spawn objects representing the user input, while to_spec() should produce output one could find in fmf files.

The default implementation comes from tmt.utils.SpecBasedContainer class, all classes based on user input data should include this class among their bases.

to_minimal_spec performs the identical operation as to_spec, but its result should not include keys that are optional and not set, while to_spec should always include all keys, even when set to default values or not set at all.

# Create an fmf id object from raw data
fmf_id = tmt.base.FmfId.from_spec({'url': ..., 'ref': ...})

`to_serialized`/`from_serialized`/`unserialize`

This family of methods is aiming at runtime objects that may be saved into and loaded from tmt working files, i.e. files tmt uses to store a state in its workdir, like step.yaml or guests.yaml.

Third member of this family, unserialize, is similar to from_serialized - both create an object from its serialized form, only unserialize is capable of detecting the class to instantiate while for using from_serialized, one must already know which class to work with. unserialize then uses from_serialized under the hood to do the heavy lifting when correct class is identified.

The default implementation comes from tmt.utils.SerializableContainer class, all classes that are being saved and loaded during tmt run should include this class among their bases.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialization for more details on the concept of serialization.

# tmt.steps.discover.shell.DiscoverShellData wishes to unserialize its
# `tests` a list of `TestDescription` objects rather than a list of
# dictionaries (the default implementation).
@classmethod
def from_serialized(cls, serialized: Dict[str, Any]) -> 'DiscoverShellData':
    obj = super().from_serialized(serialized)

    obj.tests = [TestDescription.from_serialized(
        serialized_test) for serialized_test in serialized['tests']]

    return obj

# A step saving its state...
content: Dict[str, Any] = {
    'status': self.status(),
    'data': [datum.to_serialized() for datum in self.data]
    }
self.write('step.yaml', tmt.utils.dict_to_yaml(content))

# ... and loading it back.
# Note the use of unserialize(): step data may have been serialized from
# various different classes (derived from tmt.steps.provision.Guest),
# and unserialize() will detect the correct class.
raw_step_data: Dict[Any, Any] = tmt.utils.yaml_to_dict(self.read('step.yaml'))
self.data = [
    StepData.unserialize(raw_datum) for raw_datum in raw_step_data['data']
    ]

`to_dict`/`to_minimal_dict`

Very special helper methods: its use cases are not related to any input or output data, and most of the time, when in need of iterating over object’s keys and/or values, one can use keys(), values() or items() methods. They are used as sources of data for serialization and validation, but they usually have no use outside of default implementations.

Warning

If you think of using to_dict(), please, think again and be sure you know what are you doing. Despite its output being sometimes perfectly compatible with output of to_serialized() or to_spec(), it is not generally true, and using it instead of proper methods may lead to unexpected exceptions.

The same applies to to_minimal_dict().

# tmt.base.FmfId's specification is basically just a mapping,
# therefore `to_dict()` is good enough to produce a specification.
def to_spec(self) -> Dict[str, Any]:
    return self.to_dict()

Commands vs. shell scripts

tmt internals makes distinction between a command and a shell script. This is important to enforce proper handling of shell scripts specified by users - prepare and finish scripts, test commands, etc.

There are two basic types for describing commands:

tmt.utils.Command - a list of “command elements” representing an executable followed by its arguments. Common throughout tmt’s code, never used with shell=True. This is the only form accepted by tmt.utils.Common.run() method.
tmt.utils.ShellScript - a free-form string containing a shell script, from a single built-in command to multiline complex scripts. Traditionally, this kind of “commands” is accompanied by shell=True, tmt code converts ShellScript values into Command elements, e.g. with the help of the ShellScript.to_element() method.

Following rules apply:

tmt code shall stick to Command and ShellScript types when passing commands between functions and classes. There should be no need for custom types like List[str] or str, the preferred types are equipped with necessary conversion helpers.

in most cases, tmt is given scripts by users, not executable commands with options. Plugin writers should avoid using bare str or Command types when annotating this kind of input. For example:

class FooStepData(tmt.steps.StepData):
  # `--script ...` option dictates step data to have a field of correct type
  script: List[tmt.utils.ShellScript]

...
def go(self):
  ...

  # When calling `get()`, hint type linters with the right type
  scripts: List[tmt.utils.ShellScript] = self.get('script')

shell=True should not be needed, use ShellScript.to_shell_command() instead.

Both ShellScript and Command support addition, therefore it’s possible to build up commands and scripts from smaller building blocks:

>>> command = Command('ls')
>>> command += Command('-al')
>>> command += ['/']
>>> str(command)
'ls -al /'

>>> script = ShellScript('ls -al')
>>> script += ShellScript('ls -al $HOME')
>>> str(script)
'ls -al; ls -al $HOME'

There are several functions available to help with conversion between command and shell script format:

`Command.to_element`

Convert a command - or possibly just command options - to a command element. Useful when you got a list of command options that another command is expecting as its options:

>>> ssh_command = Command('ssh', '-o', 'ForwardX11=yes', '-o', 'IdentitiesOnly=yes')
>>> command = Command('rsync', '-e', ssh_command.to_element())
>>> str(command)
"rsync -e 'ssh -o ForwardX11=yes -o IdentitiesOnly=yes'"

`Command.to_script`

Convert a command to a shell script:

>>> command1 = Command('ls', '-al', '/')
>>> command2 = Command('bash', '-c', command1.to_script().to_element())
>>> str(command2)
"bash -c 'ls -al /'"

`Script.to_element`

Convert a shell script to a command element:

>>> command = Command('bash', '-c', ShellScript('ls -al /').to_element())
>>> str(command)
"bash -c 'ls -al /'"

`Script.from_scripts`

Convert a list of shell scripts into a single script. Useful when building a script from multiple steps:

>>> scripts: List[ShellScript] = [
...   ShellScript('cd $HOME'),
...   ShellScript('ls -al')
... ]
>>>
>>> if True:
...   scripts.append(ShellScript('rm -f bar'))
...
>>> script = ShellScript.from_scripts(scripts)
>>> str(script)
'cd $HOME; ls -al; rm -f bar'

`Script.to_shell_command`

Convert a shell script into a shell-driven command. This is what shell=True would do, but it makes it explicit and involves correct type conversion:

>>> script = ShellScript("""
... cd $HOME
... ls -al
... """)
>>> command = script.to_shell_command()
>>> str(command)
"/bin/bash -c '\ncd $HOME\nls -al\n'"

Class Overview

Class Structure

Basic

Phases

Steps

Guests

Attributes

Hierarchy

Nodes, Trees

Keys, Fields, Options

Class Conversions

to_spec/to_minimal_spec/from_spec

to_serialized/from_serialized/unserialize

to_dict/to_minimal_dict

Commands vs. shell scripts

Command.to_element

Command.to_script

Script.to_element

Script.from_scripts

Script.to_shell_command