Tornado is a non-blocking web server written in Python. It's structure is similar to web.py so users of that popular Python web framework will feel right at home. This is a structure that lends itself really well to developing RESTful APIs as the methods you write to handle incoming requests are named after the HTTP methods used:

class PlaceHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
    def get(self, id):
        # respond to a GET
        self.write('GETting something')

    def post(self):
        # respond to a POST
        self.write('POSTing something')

You match URI paths to "handlers" (the controller for those MVC folk) via a list of regex, handler tuples that instantiate an "application".

application = tornado.web.Application([
    (r"/place", PlaceHandler),
    (r"/place/([0-9]+)", PlaceHandler)
])

if __name__ == "__main__":
    http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(application)
    http_server.listen(8888)
    tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()

As usual any values that are captured from the regex are passed, in order, to the method that receives the request in the handler.

Because of it's non-blocking nature Tornado bundles an asynchronous HTTP client for use internally. Additional modules include a command line and config file convenience library, escaping, 3rd party authentication (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), a wrapper around MySQLdb, and templating. All in all this makes it a formidable web framework in its own right, especially if you're looking for something that's light and FAST.

In production, I'm running 4 Tornado instances per server behind nginx.

One issue not addressed out of the box was daemonizing the Tornado instance. I added PID file management and the ability to daemonize as follows (pid.py module follows):

# capture stdout/err in logfile
log_file = 'tornado.%s.log' % options.port
log = open(os.path.join(settings.log_path, log_file), 'a+')

# check pidfile
pidfile_path = settings.PIDFILE_PATH % options.port
pid.check(pidfile_path)

# daemonize
daemon_context = daemon.DaemonContext(stdout=log, stderr=log, working_directory='.')
with daemon_context:
    # write the pidfile
    pid.write(pidfile_path)

    # initialize the application
    http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(application.app)
    http_server.listen(options.port, '127.0.0.1')

    try:
        # enter the Tornado IO loop
        tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()
    finally:
        # ensure we remove the pidfile
        pid.remove(pidfile_path)

And now the pid.py module:

# pid.py - module to help manage PID files
import os
import logging
import fcntl
import errno

def check(path):
    # try to read the pid from the pidfile
    try:
        logging.info("Checking pidfile '%s'", path)
        pid = int(open(path).read().strip())
    except IOError, (code, text):
        pid = None
        # re-raise if the error wasn't "No such file or directory"
        if code != errno.ENOENT:
            raise

    # try to kill the process
    try:
        if pid is not None:
            logging.info("Killing PID %s", pid)
            os.kill(pid, 9)
    except OSError, (code, text):
        # re-raise if the error wasn't "No such process"
        if code != errno.ESRCH:
            raise

def write(path):
    try:
        pid = os.getpid()
        pidfile = open(path, 'wb')
        # get a non-blocking exclusive lock
        fcntl.flock(pidfile.fileno(), fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
        # clear out the file
        pidfile.seek(0)
        pidfile.truncate(0)
        # write the pid
        pidfile.write(str(pid))
        logging.info("Writing PID %s to '%s'", pid, path)
    except:
        raise
    finally:
        try:
            pidfile.close()
        except:
            pass

def remove(path):
    try:
        # make sure we delete our pidfile
        logging.info("Removing pidfile '%s'", path)
        os.unlink(path)
    except:
        pass

I'm going to follow up this post another on how I added a simple concept of "models" and an easy way to perform MySQL transactions. Let me know if you have any specific questions!

Related posts:

1. Python data sharing in the multiprocessing module
2. Tornado 1.0 Released
3. Setup Python 2.5, mod_wsgi, and Django 1.0 on CentOS 5 (cPanel)

I wanted to share my experience with sharing static data between the parent and the forked children. The solution I ultimately went with is trivially implemented and works well. It takes advantage of the fact that the children import the same modules of the parent. If you house your data in a shared module, it's accessible in both places.

The directory structure looks like this:

mypackage/
    __init__.py
    mp.py
    myglobals.py
myscript.py

Here's my light wrapper around the multiprocessing module, mp.py:

import multiprocessing

import MySQLdb

import myglobals

# handles each unit of work, in this case a SQL query
def worker_do(sql):
    myglobals.cursor.execute(sql)

# called once upon worker initialization
def worker_init():
    myglobals.conn = MySQLdb.connect(**myglobals.config['db'])
    myglobals.cursor = myglobals.conn.cursor()
    myglobals.cursor.execute('SET AUTOCOMMIT=1')

# wrapper for multiprocessing module
def do_work(queue, num_processes):
    pool = multiprocessing.Pool(num_processes, initializer=worker_init)
    pool.map(worker_do, queue, 1)
    pool.close()
    pool.join()

And here's my example script, myscript.py:

import os
import sys

import mp
import myglobals

def main():
   # anything in the myglobals module will be accessible by the child processes
   # we could then programatically retrieve this config info from a file
   # via ConfigParser
   #
   # for simplicity I hard-coded it here
   myglobals.config = {
      'db': {
         'host': 'db1',
         'user': 'dbuser',
         'passwd': 'dbpasswd',
         'db': 'dbase'
      }
   }

   # build a whole bunch of queries to perform via the workers
   queries = build_queries()

   # perform the multiprocessing operation
   mp.do_work(queries, 4)

   return 0

if __name__ == '__main__':
   sys.exit(main())

In this example the benefit would be to keep your database configuration code DRY - and share that data with the child processes.

Related posts:

1. Python’s Tornado has swept me off my feet
2. Setup Python 2.5, mod_wsgi, and Django 1.0 on CentOS 5 (cPanel)
3. PHP Forking to Concurrency with pcntl_fork()

#!/usr/bin/env python

from django.core.management import setup_environ
from myapp import settings
setup_environ(settings)

# do some stuff

Related posts:

1. Setup Python 2.5, mod_wsgi, and Django 1.0 on CentOS 5 (cPanel)
2. Getting Started with Django and Python – First Impressions
3. Adventures in Django and Python – Part III

Why is a high-level deployment infrastructure important? Deployment is something that should be simple, accessible, and repeatable. It should be as close to a "single click" as possible. Previously, for me, it was a bash script that exported some SVN branches. While this worked fine, as projects progress, you want some accountability, history, and the ability to roll back mission critical applications when something goes wrong with a deploy.

Capistrano is an open source, command line, deployment tool that provides all of these features. It's written in Ruby. You leverage a variety of built in "recipes" (Capistrano's term for a deployment script) that execute certain procedures to deploy an app. Out-of-the-box it's ideally built to deploy a Rails app. However, after some minor tweaks it can deploy most anything and do it well. It can restart servers, update symlinks, change permissions - pretty much anything. It assumes you access your POSIX compliant server via SSH via the same password (or have ssh keys setup).

Webistrano is an open source web front-end for Capistrano. It's a convenience layer that abstracts the command line away and provides an interface to perform the same tasks. This interface shows history as well as providing a convenient GUI for creating new deployment projects, stages, and recipes. Highly recommended.

Let's get down to business. This post makes a few assumptions about things you've already installed and used previously.

• Ruby 1.8.5+
• RubyGems
• MySQL 5.0+
• Apache 2+
• Subversion and a repository containing the "production" branch of your app.

Installing Capistrano

Well, this is an easy one (you probably want to do this as root):

gem install capistrano

Installing Webistrano

Also fairly easy, with a little splash of configuration.

# wget http://labs.peritor.com/webistrano/attachment/wiki/Download/webistrano-1.4.zip
# unzip webistrano-1.4.zip
# mv webistrano-1.4 /path/to/where/you/want/webistrano

Setup the database tables and create a new webistrano user (obviously be conscious of your security preferences for access to your database in the host and password portions):

# mysql
mysql> CREATE DATABASE `webistrano`;
mysql> CREATE USER 'webistrano'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `webistrano`.* TO 'webistrano'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Now, in the directory where you placed webistrano you're going to want to copy config/database.yml.sample to config/database.yml. Edit this file, in the production area, to match your database settings. By default the file expects a socket to connect, you can chase this by specifying host: and port:. (Keep in mind Webistrano is simply a Rails app).

You should now be able to have Rails migrate the new database you created. In the webistrano directory:

# RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate

Finally, copy config/webistrano_config.rb.sample to config/webistrano_config.rb and edit according to your preferred mail settings.

We can now test to see if webistrano is working properly by serving it via mongrel:

# ruby script/server -d -e production -p 3000

This starts a single mongrel daemon, using the production environment, listening on port 3000. You should now be able to hit http://127.0.0.1:3000/ and get the Webistrano login prompt. If this is working, kill that mongrel instance.

For longer term serving I decided to go with Phusion Passenger (essentially mod_rails for Apache). It's a nearly zero configuration solution for serving a rails app and will feel at home to anyone with experience serving PHP apps via Apache and mod_php.

Installing Phusion Passenger

Again, as root:

# gem install passenger
# passenger-install-apache2-module

The second command will invoke an installer which compiled Passenger and provides instructions on integrating it into your Apache config. Essentially, edit your httpd.conf as follows (these were specific to my install, make sure to use the ones provide by the installer for you):

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.9/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.9
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby

Now you can simply add VirtualHost entries to your httpd.conf for any of your Rails apps. Let's add one for Webistrano:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName webistrano.mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /path/to/webistrano/public
</VirtualHost>

Yes, Passenger makes it that simple. Add configuration directives as needed for your environment.

Now Webistrano should be serving from the VirtualHost you specified, seamlessly, via Passenger.

Deploying A Non-Rails App

Now the fun stuff.

Capistrano breaks things down into projects, stages, and recipes. Each app you want managed by capistrano should be it's own project. Each project should have a stage for at least production and optionally staging and development.

Hosts are added globally and form the targets of a deploy for any given project. Hosts can include web, app, and database servers.

Deployments in Capistrano are done to a child directory under "releases" named via the date and time of the deployment. By default 5 releases are kept and available to rollback to. Upon successful deployment a symlink (default is called "current" and can be modified via the current_path configuration variable) is updated to that release directory. It is this symlink that should be targeted by your webserver (your DocumentRoot in Apache).

Capistrano also creates a "shared" directory that is symlinked to in each release useful for storing logs and other data that should be maintained through each deployment.

For non-rails apps you'll use the "Pure File" project type when creating your new project. Upon project creation you can add configuration variables specific to your project. I recommend using :export instead of :checkout for deploy_via for production subversion deployments as this doesn't expose .svn directories. Use an SSH user that has enough permissions to create directories where your deploy will occur or, specify use_sudo to true and create a new configuration variable admin_runner and set it to the same user as runner.

Add a stage to your new project for "production". In the "Manage Hosts" page add a new host for each of your application servers. Then add each host as a target of your "production" stage of your project.

At this point you should be able to execute the "Setup" task for your "production" stage. This is a one time task that simply creates the directories.

Assuming this went successfully, try doing a "Deploy" and see if that finishes without error. You might have to play around with permissions and other minor issues - post a comment if you have any specific questions.

For my PHP framework there are a couple specific tasks I wanted to run in addition to the default Capistrano tasks. You do this by creating custom recipes in the "Manage Recipes" page in Webistrano. Recipes are simply procedures written in ruby. Here's what my recipe looks like:

namespace :deploy do
	task :setup, :except => { :no_release => true } do
		dirs = [deploy_to, releases_path, shared_path]
		dirs += shared_children.map { |d| File.join(shared_path, d) }
		run "#{try_sudo} mkdir -p #{dirs.join(' ')} && #{try_sudo} chmod g+w #{dirs.join(' ')}"
		run "chmod 777 #{shared_path}/log"
	end

	task :finalize_update, :except => { :no_release => true } do
		run "mkdir -p #{latest_release}/app/tmp"
		run "chmod -R 777 #{latest_release}/app/tmp"
		run "rm -rf #{latest_release}/app/logs"
		run "ln -s #{shared_path}/log #{latest_release}/app/logs"
		run "cp #{latest_release}/public_html/.htaccess-production #{latest_release}/public_html/.htaccess"
		run "cp #{latest_release}/app/config/config-production.php #{latest_release}/app/config/config.php"
		run "cp #{latest_release}/app/config/db-default.php #{latest_release}/app/config/db.php"
		run "cp #{latest_release}/app/config/memcache-default.php #{latest_release}/app/config/memcache.php"
	end
end

If you're not familiar with Ruby - what this code is essentially doing is overwriting two tasks in the :deploy namespace with my custom code.

The first, :setup, simply duplicates the base :setup functionality discussed above (creating the releases and shared directories) and chmods the shared log directory to be writable.

The second, :finalize_update, performs a variety of configuration tasks for a PHP app built with my framework. Also, you'll notice that I'm removing my app's logs directory and symlinking to the shared log directory. This way all releases will log to the same directory, consistently.

In my case all of these procedures are command line instructions. Alternatively, you can do a variety of things leveraging the full breadth of the Ruby language and any gem you'd like to introduce. Things such as accessing your CDN API to clear image, JS, or CSS caching, etc.

Deploying Django Apps

First off it's worth noting that I serve my Django apps via mod_wsgi. To make the deployment process easier here's what my app.wsgi script looks like:

import os
import sys

appdir = os.path.normpath(os.path.join(os.path.realpath(os.path.dirname(__file__)), '..'))
sys.path.insert(0, appdir)
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'settings'
os.environ['PYTHON_EGG_CACHE'] = os.path.join(appdir, '.python-eggs')
import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

This code allows us to avoid having to hardcode paths in the wsgi script (and thus avoid having to change them when we deploy). It assumes the following directory structure:

.python-eggs (egg cache)
apps (apps path is added to python system path in settings.py)
public (where your .wsgi script resides)
site_media
templates
settings.py
settings-production.py (used for deploy)
urls.py
...

If you follow this convention, the following Capistrano recipe works great:

namespace :deploy do
	task :setup, :except => { :no_release => true } do
		dirs = [deploy_to, releases_path, shared_path]
		dirs += shared_children.map { |d| File.join(shared_path, d) }
		run "#{try_sudo} mkdir -p #{dirs.join(' ')} && #{try_sudo} chmod g+w #{dirs.join(' ')}"
		run "chmod 777 #{shared_path}/log"
	end

	task :finalize_update, :except => { :no_release => true } do
		run "rm -rf #{latest_release}/logs"
		run "ln -s #{shared_path}/log #{latest_release}/logs"
		run "cp #{latest_release}/settings-production.py #{latest_release}/settings.py"
		run "mkdir -p #{latest_release}/.python-eggs"
		run "chmod 777 #{latest_release}/.python-eggs"
	end
end

Fin

This should give you a nice intro to leveraging Capistrano via Webistrano. Feel free to comment with questions, suggestions, or anything else!

Related posts:

1. Installing Ruby Enterprise Edition with Phusion Passenger
2. 8 Books To Get A Developer For The Holidays
3. Be Language Agnostic – Solve the Problem!

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

Write better, cleaner, more maintainable code. Learn how to manage your projects and focus on shipping your product. With insight that covers the gamut of software development from low level to management
this one is a must have for anyone involved in this industry.

The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

Highly recommended! Read my full review.

Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Another classic "software construction" book. Sharpen your saw with timeless information that can be applied to any project in any language. Less bugs, more productivity, more programmer happiness.

Coders at Work

This one is different. Written as a set of interview transcripts with 15 legendary industry giants, this book is a fantastic insight into how some of the great minds think. It's inspiring to hear it from the source, must have!

Programming Clojure

A developer should learn at least one new language a year. This year that language should be Clojure. Clojure is a dynamic, general purpose, language targeting the Java virtual machine and designed for multi-threaded use. It's growing popularity, ability to leverage the Java standard library, and its multi-threaded nature make this a must have.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

Another classic. Primarily discusses project management from the perspective of Fred Brooks and his experiences at IBM. Brooks' Law states that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later".

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Web developers should always keep in mind the user of the product their creating. Usability becomes increasingly important as applications move to the web. The design and usability of your app can make or break its success. This classic is a must read.

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

This classic known most commonly as the "gang of four" book is the definitive reference on design patterns. Covering all of the most common cases and time and time again serving as an invaluable source of information.

Related posts:

1. Be Language Agnostic – Solve the Problem!
2. Deployment Using Capistrano / Webistrano via Rails / Phusion Passenger
3. Django 1.0 Template Development: Sample Chapter “Serving Multiple Templates”

The biggest reason why I chose to go with Python 2.5 at the time was because the MySQL Python (MySQLdb) package didn't support Python 2.6. The 1.2.3c1 release does so that roadblock is lifted.

The instructions are identical - nothing has really changed in that regard. Just change the references from Python 2.5 to 2.6. Here are the links to the versions I'm using successfully:

Python 2.6.4: http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.6.4/Python-2.6.4.tgz

setuptools 0.6c11: http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.6/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.6.egg#md5=bfa92100bd772d5a213eedd356d64086

MySQLdb 1.2.3c1: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python/files/mysql-python-test/1.2.3c1/MySQL-python-1.2.3c1.tar.gz/download

mod_wsgi 2.6: http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-2.6.tar.gz

Django 1.1.1: http://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.1.1/tarball/

Related posts:

1. Setup Python 2.5, mod_wsgi, and Django 1.0 on CentOS 5 (cPanel)
2. Ruby On Rails and SliceHost Part 1: Initial Setup
3. Getting Started with Django and Python – First Impressions

I've been working on a project management tool suite in Django. It's been a great side project to really experiment with Django in real-world scenarios.

Forms

At times I feel like I fight with newforms. In particular, it lacks the ability to specify basic class or style attributes for a given form field from within the template. I'd like to be able to more finely tune the display of the field, directly within the template, with a style attribute or a class. Is it suggested you write your own custom form field widget for a single element? I've been getting around this by doing the following:

<input type="text" name="{{ todo_form.item.name }}" style="width: 720px;"/>

This gets more complicated if you want to set a style attribute for a form field that's a select box (for a ForeignKey model field, for example).

<label for="category">Category:</label> <select name="{{ category_form.project.name }}" style="width: 221px;">
{% for choice_val, choice_label in category_form.project.field.choices %}
	<option value="{{ choice_val }}">{{ choice_label }}</option>
{% endfor %}

Is this a good use case for template tags? I feel like I'm missing something here.

On the positive side, it was an absolute pleasure to work with multiple forms on a single page submitted to and processed by a single view. This is primarily thanks to prefixes. Excellent, that's how easy it should be.

Ternary Operator

Update: It's been pointed out in comments (thanks!) that Python 2.5 introduced a ternary operator. It's syntax is as follows:

label = "true" if booleanVariable else "false"

I also ran into a minor Python syntax issue. I love the ternary operator in languages that offer it. It's a concise, one-line, syntax for an if-else clause. Consider the following PHP code:

$label = $booleanVariable ? 'true' : 'false';

// the above is identical to the following block:
if($booleanVariable) {
   $label = 'true';
} else {
   $label = 'false';
}

Python unfortunately lacks this syntactic sugar. Fortunately, however, you can effectively accomplish the same thing by doing this:

label = (booleanVariable and 'true' or 'false')

# the above is equivalent to the following block:
if booleanVariable:
   label = 'true'
else:
   label = 'false'

Sessions

Django has built in support for sessions. By default, sessions last longer than the lifecycle of the user's browser. I personally think it should be the other way around. It's easily changed though (in your settings.py):

SESSION_EXPIRE_AT_BROWSER_CLOSE = False

Views

In one of my views I wanted to test whether a filtered result set was empty or not. I was curious whether this was the "pythonic" way to accomplish this:

account = get_object_or_404(Account, pk=account_id)
if account.useraccount_set.filter(user__exact=request.user) != []:

Also, with respect to views and passing context to the response, sometimes it's an efficient shortcut to use locals() instead of explicitly typing out all the variables you'd like to expose. locals() returns a dictionary of all variables defined within the local scope.

def myview(request, id):
    account = get_object_or_404(Account, pk=id)
    new_account_form = NewAccountForm()

    return render_to_response('myview.html', locals())

More soon!

Related posts:

1. Django URL Parameter Passing and Python Strings
2. Django and Python First Impressions – Part II
3. Getting Started with Django and Python – First Impressions

Some notable changes include support for aggregate functions from within the ORM. This includes COUNT(), MAX(), MIN(), etc.

Also, the concept of "unmanaged" models which allow you to easily support tables that pre-existed or were created by some other means to not be maintained by Django.

Another useful addition is deferred fields. This is useful in instances where you store large amounts of text or binary data in a table and may not necessarily want to retrieve that data in a query.

Looks like an excellent point release. Go grab it now!

Related posts:

1. Setup Python 2.6.4, mod_wsgi 2.6, and Django 1.1.1 on CentOS 5.3 (cPanel)
2. jQuery 1.4 Released
3. Adventures in Django and Python – Part III

Download Sample Chapter 6 "Serving Multiple Templates"

Related posts:

1. Setup Python 2.6.4, mod_wsgi 2.6, and Django 1.1.1 on CentOS 5.3 (cPanel)
2. 8 Books To Get A Developer For The Holidays
3. Django and Python First Impressions – Part II

Watch this video. It's excellent food for thought and drives home the importance, as a programmer, of learning new, different, languages to expand your ability to solve problems in a variety of ways. The video mentions the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis which suggests that a particular language influences how a person understands and interacts with the world. This makes a lot of sense.

A programmer who thinks only in terms of a single language will attempt to solve every problem with that language. You need more than one tool on your belt because not every problem is a nail.

Related posts:

1. 8 Books To Get A Developer For The Holidays
2. Deployment Using Capistrano / Webistrano via Rails / Phusion Passenger
3. Django and Python First Impressions – Part II