Dispatching
Dispatching in tinyrpc
is very similiar to url-routing in web frameworks.
Functions are registered with a specific name and made public, i.e. callable,
to remote clients.
Examples
Exposing a few functions:
from tinyrpc.dispatch import RPCDispatcher
dispatch = RPCDispatcher()
@dispatch.public
def foo():
# ...
@dispatch.public
def bar(arg):
# ...
# later on, assuming we know we want to call foo(*args, **kwargs):
f = dispatch.get_method('foo')
f(*args, **kwargs)
Using prefixes and instance registration:
from tinyrpc.dispatch import public
class SomeWebsite(object):
def __init__(self, ...):
# note: this method will not be exposed
def secret(self):
# another unexposed method
@public
def get_user_info(self, user):
# ...
# using a different name
@public('get_user_comment')
def get_comment(self, comment_id):
# ...
The code above declares an RPC interface for SomeWebsite
objects,
consisting of two visible methods: get_user_info(user)
and
get_user_comment(comment_id)
.
These can be used with a dispatcher now:
def hello():
# ...
website1 = SomeWebsite(...)
website2 = SomeWebsite(...)
from tinyrpc.dispatch import RPCDispatcher
dispatcher = RPCDispatcher()
# directly register version method
@dispatcher.public
def version():
# ...
# add earlier defined method
dispatcher.add_method(hello)
# register the two website instances
dispatcher.register_instance(website1, 'sitea.')
dispatcher.register_instance(website2, 'siteb.')
In the example above, the RPCDispatcher
now knows
a total of six registered methods: version
, hello
,
sitea.get_user_info
, sitea.get_user_comment
, siteb.get_user_info
,
siteb.get_user_comment
.
Automatic dispatching
When writing a server application, a higher level dispatching method is
available with dispatch()
:
from tinyrpc.dispatch import RPCDispatcher
dispatcher = RPCDispatcher()
# register methods like in the examples above
# ...
# now assumes that a valid RPCRequest has been obtained, as `request`
response = dispatcher.dispatch(request)
# response can be directly processed back to the client, all Exceptions have
# been handled already
Class, static and unbound method dispatching
Although you will only rarely use these method types they do work and here we show you how.
Class methods do not have self as the initial parameter but rather a reference to their class. You may want to use such methods to instantiate class instances.
class ShowClassMethod:
@classmethod
@public
def func(cls, a, b):
return a-b
Note the ordering of the decorators. Ordering them differently will not work. You call dispatch to the func method just as you would dispatch to any other method.
Static methods have neither a class nor instance reference as first parameter:
class ShowStaticMethod:
@staticmethod
@public
def func(a, b):
return a-b
Again the ordering of the decorators is critical and you dispatch them as any other method.
Finally it is possible to dispatch to unbound methods but I strongly advise against it. If you really want to do that see the tests to learn how. Everyone else should use static methods instead.
API reference
- class tinyrpc.dispatch.RPCDispatcher
Bases:
object
Stores name-to-method mappings.
- public(name=None)
Convenient decorator.
Allows easy registering of functions to this dispatcher. Example:
dispatch = RPCDispatcher() @dispatch.public def foo(bar): # ... class Baz(object): def not_exposed(self): # ... @dispatch.public(name='do_something') def visible_method(arg1) # ...
- Parameters
name (str) – Name to register callable with.
- add_subdispatch(dispatcher, prefix='')
Adds a subdispatcher, possibly in its own namespace.
- Parameters
dispatcher (RPCDispatcher) – The dispatcher to add as a subdispatcher.
prefix (str) – A prefix. All of the new subdispatchers methods will be available as prefix + their original name.
- add_method(f, name=None)
Add a method to the dispatcher.
- Parameters
f (callable) – Callable to be added.
name (str) – Name to register it with. If
None
,f.__name__
will be used.
- Raises
RPCError – When the name is already registered.
- get_method(name)
Retrieve a previously registered method.
Checks if a method matching
name
has been registered.If
get_method()
cannot find a method, every subdispatcher with a prefix matching the method name is checked as well.- Parameters
name (str) – Function to find.
- Returns
The callable implementing the function.
- Return type
callable
- Raises
MethodNotFoundError
- register_instance(obj, prefix='')
Create new subdispatcher and register all public object methods on it.
To be used in conjunction with the
public()
decorator (notRPCDispatcher.public()
).- Parameters
obj (object) – The object whose public methods should be made available.
prefix (str) – A prefix for the new subdispatcher.
- dispatch(request, caller=None)
Fully handle request.
The dispatch method determines which method to call, calls it and returns a response containing a result.
No exceptions will be thrown, rather, every exception will be turned into a response using
error_respond()
.If a method isn’t found, a
MethodNotFoundError
response will be returned. If any error occurs outside of the requested method, aServerError
without any error information will be returned.If the method is found and called but throws an exception, the exception thrown is used as a response instead. This is the only case in which information from the exception is possibly propagated back to the client, as the exception is part of the requested method.
RPCBatchRequest
instances are handled by handling all its children in order and collecting the results, then returning anRPCBatchResponse
with the results.- Parameters
request (RPCRequest) – The request containing the function to be called and its parameters.
caller (callable) – An optional callable used to invoke the method.
- Returns
The result produced by calling the requested function.
- Return type
- Raises
MethodNotFoundError – If the requested function is not published.
ServerError – If some other error occurred.
Note
The
ServerError
is raised for any kind of exception not raised by the called function itself orMethodNotFoundError
.
- validate_parameters(method, args, kwargs)
Verify that *args and **kwargs are appropriate parameters for method.
- Parameters
method – A callable.
args – List of positional arguments for method
kwargs – Keyword arguments for method
- Raises
InvalidParamsError – Raised when the provided arguments are not acceptable for method.
- validator(method, args, kwargs)
Dispatched function parameter validatation.
- Type
callable
By default this attribute is set to
validate_parameters()
. The value can be set to any callable implementing the same interface asvalidate_parameters()
or to None to disable validation entirely.
Classes can be made to support an RPC interface without coupling it to a dispatcher using a decorator:
- tinyrpc.dispatch.public(name=None)
Decorator. Mark a method as eligible for registration by a dispatcher.
The dispatchers
register_instance()
function will do the actual registration of the marked method.The difference with
public()
is that this decorator does not register with a dispatcher, therefore binding the marked methods with a dispatcher is delayed until runtime. It also becomes possible to bind with multiple dispatchers.- Parameters
name (str or None) – The name to register the function with.
Example:
def class Baz(object): def not_exposed(self); # ... @public('do_something') def visible_method(self, arg1): # ... baz = Baz() dispatch = RPCDispatcher() dispatch.register_instance(baz, 'bazzies`) # Baz.visible_method is now callable via RPC as bazzies.do_something('hello')
@public
is a shortcut for@public()
.