Developing

Here are some guidelines for developing open source project PyFake-API-Server. It's very easy to start because PyFake-API-Server is managed by Poetry.

Requirements for development

PyFake-API-Server require Python version 3.9 up. Please make sure the Python version in your runtime environment.

Recommended: Use the latest Python version to develop

PyFake-API-Server only support Python version 3.9 +. If you're user, please make sure you're Python version should be newer than version 3.9. However, for developers, it strongly suggests you should upgrade your runtime environment Python to the latest version. We should not take too much time to develop with older version and the responsibility of the test running with older versions belong to CI tool. It does definitely not your job.

On top of that, there are another 2 tools would suggest you to install it: PyEnv and Poetry.

PyEnv - Python versions management

First of all, you should make sure that you have already installed PyEnv.

pyenv --version

If you don't, please install it.

PyEnv is a great tool for strongly managing so many different Python versions in your runtime environment. With it, you could very quickly switch to different Python version to developing or troubleshooting with your Python code. That's very helpful to developers to develop a crossing Python version library or tool.

After checking PyEnv, let's check next one tool: Poetry:

Poetry - Python project dependency management

poetry --version

If you don't install it, please install it.

Poetry is a powerful tool for managing dependencies for Python project. It also could manage many things like other tool's configuration detail settings.

Set Python runtime environment

Now, we have installed PyEnv and Poetry. We can:

• Use PyEnv to manage Python versions in our runtime environment.
• Use Poetry to manage the dependencies or other tool's configuration settings of our Python project.

From above 2 statements, we also can:

• Use PyEnv to control which Python version runtime environment we would use to develop
• Use Poetry to configure project dependencies with current Python runtime environment

So let's start to set the latest Python version in current environment.

First, install the latest Python version:

pyenv install <Python version>

Verify what Python versions you have installed before

You could verify the version info by below command:

pyenv versions

Second, create a virtual environment with the Python version.

It suggests you create a virtual environment with one specific Python version for your project. That could help to let your project's dependency be independent of your local environment with one specific Python version. In other words, it would be convenience to create another virtual environment with other different Python version to develop or debug.

pyenv virtualenv <Python version> <virtusl environment name>

Let's access to the virtual environment and verify the Python version in it:

pyenv activate <virtusl environment name>

Check the Python version:

python --version

After we access to virtual environment and verify the Python version, we could install tool Poetry:

pip install poetry

Don't forget verify the tool function:

poetry --help

Install development dependencies

Now, we have already prepared the runtime environment and tools. And we should be in the virtual environment and tool Poetry has been ready for using. Let's start to install dependencies.

It's very easy to install dependencies for the Python project be managed by Poetry. You only run the command line as following:

poetry install

It will take some time to install all dependencies the project needs. After it done, we could verify the dependencies:

poetry run pip list

pip in virtual environment vs pip in Poetry shell

The dependencies would be installed in Poetry shell, doesn't in virtual environment shell. Poetry would also help you create a virtual environment to set all configurations of your Python project. So if you verify the dependencies in currenct runtime environment directly, it is empty. That's why you should check it through command poetry run.

Verify features

After finish all the above prerequisites, let's try to run the command line feature!

We should activate the command line feature by 2 ways: run the directory of source code or run command line.

run the directory of source code

PyFake-API-Server has entry point for package. So it could run the folder of source code directly.

Out of Poetry shellWithin Poetry shell

poetry run ./fake_api_server --help

./fake_api_server --help

run command line

Run the command line directly to be closer in usage as a developers:

Out of Poetry shellWithin Poetry shell

poetry run mock --help

mock --help

How to access into Poetry shell

You could access into Poetry shell as below command:

poetry shell

Congratulation! Right now you could start to do anything what you want to do of PyFake-API-Server project!