Derek Dong

Software Developer

iRODS Consortium

June 13-16, 2023

iRODS User Group Meeting 2023

Chapel Hill, NC

The iRODS CLI we deserve

Overview

  • What are iCommands, the current default CLI?
  • Why is a new CLI necessary?
  • Goals for the new CLI
  • Progress on the new CLI
  • Remaining work
  • Future

What are iCommands?

  • The traditional client program that interacts with iRODS
     
  • Comprised of 50~ or so individual binaries, each with differing functionality
     
  • Written originally in C, then ported to C++
     

  • A polished product: iterated upon for a long time

Why is a new CLI necessary?

  • Not a single, cohesive product
  • Mostly C disguised as C++
  • Unfriendly to developers and newbies
  • Potential breaking changes for others' workflow
  • Hard dependencies on main repo

$ for i in $(compgen -G '*' | grep '\.cpp$' | sed 's/^i\(.*\)\.cpp/\1/')
  do

    ls ../../irods/lib/core/src/${i}Util* 2>/dev/null

  done | wc -l

  19

Goals for the new CLI

  • Easy to comprehend and extend
  • Easy to deploy
  • Replace/extend the original iCommands
  • Use modern C++ libs (both iRODS and external)

Progress on the new CLI - Comprehensibility

  • Uses more boost/iRODS libs
    • Most functionality has a LoC reduction
    • Code based on the iRODS C++ libs is safer
  • Avoids "hard" main repo dependencies
    • Uses the client libs, not each commands' special ones!

Progress on the new CLI - Comprehensibility

  • Modern invocation with single base binary
  • Inspired by commands like docker, ip, etc.

$ ./irods ls
C- '"''
C- potato
C- test3
bettername
testfilethree
testfiletwo

$ ./irods mv potato tomato

$ ./irods cp bettername bettername2

$ ./irods rm testfiletwo

Progress on the new CLI - Comprehensibility

$ ./irods ls -A

C- '"''
        ACL - rods|tempZone|own
C- test3
        ACL - rods|tempZone|own
C- tomato
        ACL - rods|tempZone|own
bettername
        ACL -     rods#own
bettername2
        ACL -     rods#own
testfilethree
        ACL -     rods#own

 

 

Progress on the new CLI - Extensibility

  • Abstract class to be inherited from

namespace irods::cli
{
    class command
    {
    public:
        virtual ~command() = default;

        virtual auto name() const noexcept -> std::string_view = 0;

        virtual auto description() const noexcept -> std::string_view = 0;

        virtual auto help_text() const noexcept -> std::string_view = 0;

        virtual auto execute(const std::vector<std::string>& args) -> int = 0;
    };
} // namespace irods::cli

  • Dynamically loadable modules (more later...)

Progress on the new CLI - Feature Parity/Modernization

Replace/extend the original iCommands
Use modern C++ libs

13~ commands with base functionality

  • tree
  • mkdir
  • get
  • put
  • cd
  • ls
  • mv
  • pwd
  • touch
  • etc...

All are written from scratch using modern C++ libs like irods::filesystem, libfmt, boost::program_options, etc.

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

Optional command linking: static or dynamic!

  • Uses the power of CMake magic

Build output can be a single binary:

$ find . -type f \! -name '*.deb'
./irods

It can also be...

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

$ find . -type f \! -name '*.deb'
./libirods_cli_put.so
./libirods_cli_mkdir.so
./libirods_cli_exit.so
./libirods_cli_get.so
./libirods_cli_cp.so
./libirods_cli_ls.so
./libirods_cli_touch.so
./libirods_cli_rm.so
./libirods_cli_tree.so
./irods
./libirods_cli_cd.so
./libirods_cli_pwd.so
./libirods_cli_mv.so
./libirods_cli_repl.so

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

Modifying linking type from static to dynamic (or vice versa?)

Just make a small edit to the CMakeLists.txt at the root of the repo!

  9 set(irods_static_subcommands)
 10 set(irods_dynamic_subcommands ls put get repl ...)

  9 set(irods_static_subcommands ls put get repl ...)
 10 set(irods_dynamic_subcommands)

Example of linking all subcommands statically:

Dynamically:

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

Demo - statically linked deployment

 

$ ls /lib/irods/plugins/cli/

 

$ ./irods ls
C- '"''
C- potato
C- test3
'
'"'''
bettername
testfilethree
testfiletwo

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

Demo - loading plugins at runtime

$ ls /lib/irods/plugins/cli/

 

$ ./irods ls
Invalid command: ls

$ cp *.so /lib/irods/plugins/cli/
 

$ ./irods ls
C- '"''
C- potato
C- test3
'
'"'''
bettername
testfilethree
testfiletwo

Progress on the new CLI - Ease of Deployment

Anyone building can include/exclude commands freely

  9 set(irods_static_subcommands ls)
 10 set(irods_dynamic_subcommands put get repl ...)

$ ls /lib/irods/plugins/cli/


$ ./irods cd ..
Invalid command: cd
 

$ ./irods pwd
Invalid command: pwd
 

$ ./irods ls
C- '"''
C- test3
C- tomato
bettername
bettername2
testfilethree

Remaining work

  • Project is young; still many commands to implement

    • Several complex ones are still pending

      • iadmin

      • imeta, etc...

  • Implemented commands still missing some features
  • Documentation for just about everything
    • No help messages...
  • Template project for new CLI commands
  • Code normalization/smell
    • Some using-namespaces are inconsistent
    • Some code is unnecessarily paranoid
  • Tests of all kinds!

Future

  • Features beyond what the original iCommands have

    • JSON output on all the commands

    • Cross-platform compatibility

  • Community contributions can be easily integrated, thanks to the modular system

Thank you!

Questions?