Hacking.md

Tips for local development

Virtualenv and Packages

To simulate the exact package versions as on the status machine use a python3 virtualenv.

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Custom config

If a valid techfak_info.conf file is found in the current directory it is parsed after the regular one, allowing one to overwrite custom values.

Example:

[DEFAULT]
html_dir = build
; testing data inside the repo
data_path = share/dummy_data.json
; custom path to the template files inside the repo
template_dir = share/templates
; rename from index.html to avoid autoload of it when simply opening the build
; folder inside a browser
info_page = ${html_dir}/infopage.html

; use a local smtp server for testing
[mail]
smtp_port = 8025
smtp_server = localhost

; vim: ft=ini

Local tests

Do not call any of the status scripts directly since they are production ready and will connect you with the status-machine. Call the individual scripts inside lib/techfak.info (TODO: should be libexec) to test their function. Make sure that you have a custom config as written to not send actual mails.

If you're a tmux user: There is a tmuxp layout file which gives you a nice shell setup.

Local mails

Use a local smtp server to quickly view send mails without spamming your regular inbox, e.g. python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:8025. Use the function unb() {echo "${@}" | sed "s/b'//g" | sed "s/'//g" | sed "s/\n//g" | base64 -d -} in case of base64-encoded content. unb <body_of_message>

Local preview

python -m http.server starts a local HTTP-server which is perfectly suitable for previewing generated webpages, also used by make demo.

Import from regular python shell

Export PYTHONPATH=lib/techfak.info to be able to directly import the techfak_info-lib inside a regular python shell.