[Fab-user] Patch for prompt and require

[Niklas Lindström]

Hi!

Here's my follow-up about implementation of my suggestions. The patch
I attach is from my first proper use of Git, so please forgive and
correct me if I've botched this-or-that. And do scrutinize my code.

(I haven't used the git-mechanism for mailing patches, just
generation. If I'm going to continue like this, perhaps I should also
set up my branch on git-hub, as Jeff has?)

I don't know if Christian or Jeff wants to merge this right away (and
change stuff you dislike). I will of course do any fixes you require
prior to an eventual merge if you don't approve of my design.


== Included in the patch ==

* improved "prompt":

    - new keyword "retry". If True, will re-prompt until value is not None.

    - validate can be a regexp *string*. It will be compiled into a regexp
      whose "match" method will be called with the given value (unless it's
      None).

    - new keyword "auto". If used, prompt will *not* prompt if the value of
      "auto" is not None. It will still validate though (and thus re-prompt if
      "retry" is True).

      *Note*: maybe this should be merged with the existing mechanism of not
      prompting if the var is already "set"? By replacing auto with that, but
      reasonably still validate the actual value.

* improved "require":
    - can take more than one varname and require *all* of them to be provided.


That's all.

I do have some things I'd like to get to work on rather soon. These are:


== To do next ==

* add unittests for the above (I've only "acceptance"-tested the above
in my actual fabfiles).

* improved "load":
    - will only invoke the loaded fab script once. Thus multi-file based fab
      setups can shared loaded scipts without having them invoked multiple
      times.

* new operation "call_once":
    - will call the given function (command) *unless* it has already been
      called.

* new decorators

    @requires
       Calls "require" with the given args before invoking the decorated
       command.

    @depends
        Calls "call_once" with the given args before calling the decorated
        command.


== After that ==

* replace current "set" and "get" with a more powerful "params" object.
* Provide a mechanism for directory scoped file system operations.


Would you like me to take a stab at these?

Best regards,
Niklas

changed_prompt_require-081018_1827.patch
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