remoteobjects 1.1

an Object RESTational Model

remoteobjects are real subclassable Python objects on which you can build a rich API library.

remoteobjects provides easy coding and transfer between Python objects and a JSON REST API. You can define the resources in a RESTful API as RemoteObject classes and their properties. These objects then support using the basic HTTP verbs to request and submit data to the API.

remoteobjects have:

• programmable conversion between Python objects and your API’s JSON resource format

• full and correct HTTP support through the httplib2 library, including caching and authentication

• delayed evaluation of objects to avoid unnecessary requests

Example

For example, you can build a simplified Twitter API library in the shell:

>>> from remoteobjects import RemoteObject, fields, ListObject
>>> class Tweeter(RemoteObject):
...     name        = fields.Field()
...     screen_name = fields.Field()
...     location    = fields.Field()
...
>>> class Tweet(RemoteObject):
...     text    = fields.Field()
...     source  = fields.Field()
...     tweeter = fields.Object(Tweeter, api_name='user')
...
>>> class Timeline(ListObject):
...     entries = fields.List(fields.Object(Tweet))
...
>>> tweets = Timeline.get('http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.json')
>>> [t.tweeter.screen_name for t in tweets.entries[0:3]]
['eddeaux', 'CurtisLilly', '8email8']

For web APIs

remoteobjects is your Object RESTational Model for web APIs. You can define each type of resource as a RemoteObject subclass, with all the resource’s member data specified as remoteobjects.field.Field instances for lightweight typing.

As provided, remoteobjects works with JSON REST APIs. Such an API should be arranged as a series of resources available at URLs as JSON entities (generally objects). The API server should support editing through POST and PUT requests, and return appropriate HTTP status codes for errors.

The remoteobjects module is not limited to a particular kind of API. The RemoteObject interface is provided in DataObject, HttpObject, and PromiseObject layers you can reuse, extend, and override to tailor objects to your target API.

Dictionaries with methods

While you can use an HTTP module and plain JSON coding to convert API resources into dictionaries, remoteobjects gives you real objects with encapsulated behavior instead of processing with external functions. A RemoteObject instance’s behavior is clearly packaged in your RemoteObject subclass, where it is not only enforced through use of the object interface but extensible and replaceable through plain old subclassing.