manila/doc/source/contributor/addmethod.openstackapi.rst
Tom Barron 90060722a9 doc migration: new directory layout
This patch introduces a new directory layout
in doc/source in conformance with the OpenStack
manuals project migration spec [1], moves the
existing content in manila/doc/source into the
new directories, and adjusts index files accordingly.

This is the first step in the migration process
as outlined in the spec.

[1] https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/docs-specs/specs/pike/os-manuals-migration.html

Partial-Bug: #1706181
Needed-By: I7924d94b82e7c8d9716bad7a219fc38c57970773
Depends-On: Ifc80fc56648cef74c85464321d1850e8c68449a0
Depends-On: Ia750cb049c0f53a234ea70ce1f2bbbb7a2aa9454
Change-Id: Ieea33262101a1d2459492c1c8aaac5fe042279f6
2017-08-24 09:16:25 -04:00

2.7 KiB

Adding a Method to the OpenStack API

The interface is a mostly RESTful API. REST stands for Representational State Transfer and provides an architecture "style" for distributed systems using HTTP for transport. Figure out a way to express your request and response in terms of resources that are being created, modified, read, or destroyed.

Routing

To map URLs to controllers+actions, OpenStack uses the Routes package, a clone of Rails routes for Python implementations. See http://routes.groovie.org/ for more information.

URLs are mapped to "action" methods on "controller" classes in manila/api/v1/router.py.

See http://routes.groovie.org/manual.html for all syntax, but you'll probably just need these two:
  • mapper.connect() lets you map a single URL to a single action on a controller.
  • mapper.resource() connects many standard URLs to actions on a controller.

Controllers and actions

Controllers live in manila/api/v1 and manila/api/contrib.

See manila/api/v1/shares.py for an example.

Action methods take parameters that are sucked out of the URL by mapper.connect() or .resource(). The first two parameters are self and the WebOb request, from which you can get the req.environ, req.body, req.headers, etc.

Serialization

Actions return a dictionary, and wsgi.Controller serializes that to JSON or XML based on the request's content-type.

If you define a new controller, you'll need to define a _serialization_metadata attribute on the class, to tell wsgi.Controller how to convert your dictionary to XML. It needs to know the singular form of any list tag (e.g. <shares> list contains <share> tags) and which dictionary keys are to be XML attributes as opposed to subtags (e.g. <share id="4"/> instead of <share><id>4</id></share>).

See manila/api/v1/shares.py for an example.

Faults

If you need to return a non-200, you should return faults.Fault(webob.exc.HTTPNotFound()) replacing the exception as appropriate.