workflow 2.0.0

Simple workflows for Python

About

Workflow is a Finite State Machine with memory. It is used to execute set of methods in a specified order.

Here is a simple example of a workflow configuration:

[
  check_token_is_wanted, # (run always)
  [                      # (run conditionally)
     check_token_numeric,
     translate_numeric,
     next_token          # (stop processing, continue with next token)
     ],
  [                      # (run conditionally)
     check_token_proper_name,
     translate_proper_name,
     next_token          # (stop processing, continue with next token)
     ],
  normalize_token,       # (only for "normal" tokens)
  translate_token,
]

Documentation

Documentation is readable at http://workflow.readthedocs.org or can be built using Sphinx:

pip install Sphinx
python setup.py build_sphinx

Installation

Workflow is on PyPI so all you need is:

pip install workflow

Testing

Running the test suite is as simple as:

python setup.py test

or, to also show code coverage:

./run-tests.sh

Changes

Version 2.0.0 (released 2016-06-17):

Incompatible changes

• Drops setVar(), getVar(), delVar() and exposes the engine.store dictionary directly, with an added setget() method that acts as getVar().

• Renames s/getCurrObjId/curr_obj_id/ and s/getCurrTaskId/curr_task_id/ which are now properties. Also renames s/getObjects/get_object/ which now no longer returns index.

• Removes PhoenixWorkflowEngine. To use its functionality, the new engine model’s extensibility can be used.

• Moves processing_factory out of the WorkflowEngine and into its own class. The majority of its operations can now be overridden by means of subclassing WorkflowEngine and the new, complementing ActionMapper and TransitionActions classes and defining properties. This way super can be used safely while retaining the ability to continue or break out of the main loop.

• Moves exceptions to errors.py.

• Changes interface to use pythonic names and renames methods to use more consistent names.

• WorkflowHalt exception was merged into HaltProcessing and the WorkflowMissingKey exception has been dropped.

• Renames ObjectVersion to ObjectStatus (as imported from Invenio) and ObjectVersion.FINAL to ObjectVersion.COMPLETED.

New features

• Introduces SkipToken and AbortProcessing from engine_db.

• Adds support for signaling other processes about the actions taken by the engine, if blinker is installed.

• Moves callbacks to their own class to reduce complexity in the engine and allow extending.

• GenericWorkflowEngine.process now supports restarting the workflow (backported from Invenio)

Improved features

• Updates all staticproperty functions to classproperty to have access to class type and avoid issue with missing arguments to class methods.

• Re-raises exceptions in the engine so that they are propagated correctly to the user.

• Replaces _i with MachineState, which protects its contents and explains their function.

• Allows for overriding the logger with any python-style logger by defining the init_logger method so that projects can use their own.

• Splits the DbWorkflowEngine initializer into with_name and from_uuid for separation of concerns. The latter no longer implicitly creates a new object if the given uuid does not exist in the database. The uuid comparison with the log name is now reinforced.

• Updates tests requirements.

Version 1.2.0 (released 2014-10-23):

• Fix interference with the logging level. (#22 #23)

• Test runner is using Pytest. (#21)

• Python 3 support. (#7)

• Code style follows PEP8 and PEP257. (#6 #14)

• Improved Sphinx documentation. (#5 #28)

• Simplification of licensing. (#27)

• Spelling mistake fixes. (#26)

• Testing with Tox support. (#4)

• Configuration for Travis-Cl testing service. (#3)

• Test coverage report. (#2)

• Unix style line terminators. (#10)

Version 1.0 (released 2011-07-07):

• Initial public release.

• Includes the code created by Roman Chyla, the core of the workflow engine together with some basic patterns.

• Raja Sripada <rsripada at cern ch> contributed improvements to the pickle&restart mechanism.