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OpenOffice with buildouts

jfroche — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:13:24 +0100

This recipe was started by Infrae, I have added the pyuno egg creation within the recipe. It is so nice to be able to share code so easily !

Download OpenOffice in a buildout might sound odd but

You got used (and I think you are right) to isolate your python environment for each projects (e.g using buildout & virtualenv)
You want to control OpenOffice components with your favourite python using the official OpenOffice library: pyuno
If you already installed OpenOffice, you might not see how to link your favourite python with the pyuno library provided by the OpenOffice package of your favourite distribution

The python uno library (aka pyuno) is only delivered with OpenOffice. The library provides access to all OpenOffice UNO api which means:

read and write doc, odt, rdf, xls and the most common file extension known in the different well known office suites
generate nice pdf
no xml parsing/transforms when you want to read odt & co
fill in templates with content (e.g. pod )
drawing shapes
... (you might want to have a look at the OO developper guide for more informations even if there is lot's of java examples )

The only major disadvantage is that it requires to connect to an openoffice process. This can be a problem if your sysadmin don't want to install a real X server in a production environment but this disadvantage is quickly fixed if you install and use Xvfb

This recipe can

download OpenOffice from any url (default to OpenOffice 2.3) and extract it in your buildout
replace the default python interpreter delivered with OO with the one you are using in your buildout
create an egg with pyuno and link it inside your buildout

More info about installation and usage of this recipe on pypi

Linux is only supported by now (and I don't want to be sorry for not having a mac), if you want to fix this the code is here ;)

Zope 3 dependencies in Zope 2 buildout

jfroche — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:23:37 +0100

I got tired removing zope.interface, zope.component, zope.deferredimport, zope.event, ... of my eggs folder inside my buildout when installing package such as z3c.sqlalchemy in my Zope2 / Plone buildouts ...

After the discussion on Zope3-users list and thanks to Jim lights, I wrote a really simple recipe which just create egg links to zope libraries in your develop-eggs so that setuptools can see that the dependencies are already satisfied.

So if you list your zope library :

$ ls yourbuildout/parts/yourzope2/lib/python/zope

app configuration documenttemplate exceptions i18n __init__.py pagetemplate schema structuredtext testbrowser viewlet
cachedescriptors contentprovider dottedname formlib i18nmessageid interface proxy security tal testing
component deprecation event hookable index modulealias publisher server tales thread

You will get

$ ls yourbuildout/develop-eggs

zope.app.component.egg-info zope.app.security.egg-info zope.dottedname.egg-info zope.interface.egg-info zope.structuredtext.egg-info
zope.app.egg-info zope.app.testing.egg-info zope.event.egg-info zope.modulealias.egg-info zope.tal.egg-info
zope.app.event.egg-info zope.cachedescriptors.egg-info zope.exceptions.egg-info zope.pagetemplate.egg-info zope.tales.egg-info
zope.app.i18n.egg-info zope.component.egg-info zope.formlib.egg-info zope.proxy.egg-info zope.testbrowser.egg-info
zope.app.interface.egg-info zope.configuration.egg-info zope.hookable.egg-info zope.publisher.egg-info zope.testing.egg-info
zope.app.pagetemplate.egg-info zope.contentprovider.egg-info zope.i18n.egg-info zope.schema.egg-info zope.thread.egg-info
zope.app.publisher.egg-info zope.deprecation.egg-info zope.i18nmessageid.egg-info zope.security.egg-info zope.viewlet.egg-info
zope.app.schema.egg-info zope.documenttemplate.egg-info zope.index.egg-info zope.server.egg-info

Where each of these file will be seen for setuptools as an egg:

$ cat yourbuildout/develop-eggs/zope.app.component.egg-info

Metadata-Version: 1.0
Name: zope.app.component
Version: 0.0

Sure this might look like an ugly hook but I can't wait for zope 2 eggification

Buildout and Virtualenv

jfroche — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:38:16 +0100

Buildout is this wonderful tool which helps you to automate setup and configuration of your applications.

Virtualenv is a tool which will help you to isolate your python environment

A few days ago I got stuck during a long time because I didn't see that one library I installed in my global site-packages of my favourite python 2.4 (on my ubuntu: /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/) was a lower version of a library I was using in my buildout. Package was sqlalchemy 0.4 in my global sites-package and my buildout based application was using sqlalchemy 0.3.8 ... Here is a simple solution to avoid this kind of things.

Idea is to start buildout with a python free of any external library. Virtualenv is the answer.

Install Virtualenv

Easy:

$ easy_install virtualenv

you will have then a file that you can run: /usr/bin/virtualenv

Let's say you have a buildout configuration go into it:

$ cd myApp.buildout
$ ls -l
bootstrap.py
buildout.cfg

Now you just have to create the python environment without any access to the global site-packages with virtualenv:

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages .
You will have then your new python in the bin folder :

$ ls -l bin
activate
easy_install
easy_install-2.4
python2.4

You can now run the buildout configuration with your new python:

$ ./bin/python2.4 bootstrap.py
$ ./bin/buildout
This will create you a nice and totally isolated environment ...

Write nicer Python code

jfroche — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:09:49 +0200

Starting from the basic facts:

you can't always code in pair
you don't want to compile & tests to check that is fine in the last few line you have just written
you want to write nice python code
you want to improve the way you write python

It exists a few very interesting softwares that can help you.

Here is a list of the one I am using really often:

PyFlakes - http://www.divmod.org/projects/pyflakes

PyLint - http://www.logilab.org/view?rql=Any%20X%20WHERE%20X%20eid%20857

These two are nice also but not as good as the previous one:

PyMetrics - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pymetrics

PyChecker - http://pychecker.sourceforge.net/

These tool are directly linked to my favourite editor VI:

command Pyflakes :call Pyflakes()
function! Pyflakes()
    let tmpfile = tempname()
    execute "w" tmpfile
    execute "set makeprg=(pyflakes\\ " . tmpfile . "\\\\\\|sed\\ s@" . tmpfile ."@%@)"
    make
    cw
endfunction

command Pylint :call Pylint()
function! Pylint()
    setlocal makeprg=(echo\ '[%]';\ pylint\ %)
    setlocal efm=%+P[%f],%t:\ %#%l:%m
    silent make
    cwindow
    endfunction

And better each time you save your python file in vim , I check for wrong imports with Pyflakes with:

autocmd BufWrite *.{py} :call Pyflakes()

Watch my new commit...

jfroche — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:10:28 +0200

We will make this in 4 steps.

Step 1: Installing pysvn

Check that you don't have it yet:

$ python2.4
Python 2.4.3 (#2, Oct  6 2006, 07:52:30)
[GCC 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import svn
>>>

If you get something else (e.g ImportError: No module named svn) you will need to do this step:

You will need the python library to access subversion: pysvn. Note that header of the libsvn are required [should come with your subversion install]!
Go to http://pysvn.tigris.org/project_downloads.html and fetch last tarball (MacOSX version also available). Note that
pysvn is noted there as "Extension". I fetched last stable version: http://pysvn.tigris.org/files/documents/1233/34994/pysvn-1.5.0.tar.gz

$ tar xvzf pysvn-1.5.0.tar.gz 
 ...
$ cd pysvn-1.5.0/Source
$ python2.4 setup.py configure 
...
$ make
...[pray]...
$ mkdir /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/pysvn
$ cp pysvn/__init__.py /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/pysvn
$ cp pysvn/_pysvn.so /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/pysvn

Now try again and you should get something like:

$ python2.4
Python 2.4.3 (#2, Oct  6 2006, 07:52:30)
[GCC 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import svn
>>>

Step 2: Installing SVNMailer

Go to http://storage.perlig.de/svnmailer/ and fetch last tarball (stable actual one is: http://storage.perlig.de/svnmailer/svnmailer-1.0.8.tar.gz)

Fallow these steps:

$ tar xvzf svnmailer-1.0.8.tar.gz
   ...

$ cd svnmailer-1.0.8
$ /usr/bin/python2.4 setup.py install
   ...

You have now a brand new svnmailer installed. Check it with:

$ ls -l /usr/bin/svnmailer
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2192 2006-10-24 17:00 /usr/bin/svn-mailer

3) Configure your repository to use svnmailer

We created a svn repository:

$ svnadmin create /var/svn/repos1

So we have a repository on our local filesystem in /var/svn/repos1

Go into the hooks directory:

$ cd /var/svn/repos1/hooks

Add/edit post-commit file.
And add the fallowing lines:

#!/bin/sh
REPOS="$1"
REV="$2"
/usr/bin/svn-mailer commit "$REPOS" "$REV" /etc/svn-mailer.conf

Change execute permission on post-commit

chmod 755 post-commit

It's time to configure SVNMailer

4) Configure SVNMailer

Edit/Add the file /etc/svn-mailer.conf
And add the fallowing lines [you might edit few things...]. Imagine that I have mymodule in my repository (so that i can do svn co file:///var/svn/repos1/mymodule)

[general]
# see http://opensource.perlig.de/svnmailer/doc-1.0/#general for details.

# the diff command to be used ... just copy it...
diff = /usr/bin/diff -u -L %(label_from)s -L %(label_to)s %(from)s %(to)s
# the sendmail location
mail_command = /usr/sbin/sendmail

[mymodule]
# see http://opensource.perlig.de/svnmailer/doc-1.0/#groups for details
# this part of the config apply only for commits under mymodule
for_paths = mymodule/.*

# the subject of the email
commit_subject_prefix = [MYMODULE]

# From address in the mail
from_addr = jfroche@jfroche.be

# To address ...
to_addr = peopleinterestinginmymodule@foo.bar

[defaults]
# see http://opensource.perlig.de/svnmailer/doc-1.0/#groups for details
# this part of the config apply for all the other module

# Default From address template
from_addr = %(author)s@localhost.localdomain

# the subject of the email 
commit_subject_prefix = [SVN]
to_addr = jeff@jfroche.be foo@skynet.be bar@gmail.com
generate_diffs = add copy modify
suppress_deletes = yes

Here it is... Try to commit and you should get email...

If you want to traceback error, go to edit /var/svn/repos1/hooks/post-commit and for example log to a file by changing the line

/usr/bin/svn-mailer commit "$REPOS" "$REV" /etc/svn-mailer.conf

/usr/bin/svn-mailer commit "$REPOS" "$REV" /etc/svn-mailer.conf 2> 1> /tmp/svnmailer.log

Hope this helps ...

Blogging...

jfroche — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:30:03 +0200

Having a blog seems to be a really new fashion among differents communities (young people, developpeurs, scientists, artists ...).

Blog is a short form for weblog in fact, principe is simple: display at the top the newest written article.
There is different kind of weblog:

Personal : express the life's thoughts
Professional : express professional experiences

Cultural : express all your culural (music, movie, paintings...) thoughts

Most of my stuffs will be about personal and professional expericences, General will be my personnal thoughts and the others will be topic oriented.

As Zope and Plone are part of my professional fun for the moment these are the actual topics. Don't know if I will be enough talkative to express what I see, feel but it's a good exercice for me. Taking also my place into this so big world...

My previous thoughts about blogging were very negative, thinking that most are unuseful and never read. They were like books inside a cellar that nobody read. Things are changing as you see. While working on a zope 3 stuff, I was yesterday thinking "hey I should put that somewhere on a page..." and the weblog idea came up again. Don't want to tell myself "you should go there every night and at least write something", something that I will do during few days and stop, I know me. So let's say I will write here when i feel so without any dates constraints.

Spelling, grammar... I am a native french speaker that should take more english lessons. I don't want to write here in french as english is thecommon language in the zope/plone community. I hope people don't mind too much about that ?