TracRPC plugin development setup

This post is just a summary of how to get a separate ​TracRPC Python development environment configured.

It presumes you have Python, Subversion and Python-Subversion bindings installed already. Other than that, it depends on ​virtualenv, a great way of making completely separate Python installations for test and development.

1. Make a virtualenv

simon: ~ > cd dev
simon: ~/dev > virtualenv tracrpc
New python executable in tracrpc/bin/python
Installing setuptools............done.
simon: ~/dev > source tracrpc/bin/activate
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev > 

We are now running the virtual python.

2. Get Source

We want a recent stable Trac, and TracRPC development depends on running Trac for source so we neeed to do a checkout. Also, we want to checkout the TracRPC sourcecode itself.

(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev > mkdir tracrpc/src
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev > cd tracrpc/src
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src > svn co http://svn.edgewall.org/repos/trac/branches/0.12-stable trac
..... [snip] .....
Checked out revision 10122.
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src > svn co http://trac-hacks.org/svn/xmlrpcplugin/trunk tracrpc
..... [snip] .....
Checked out revision 9092.

3. Install

Installing is done using develop mode, which means that we are running the modules and scripts from the checkout - without building and installing eggs to a separate location.

Install Trac:

(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src > cd trac
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/trac > python setup.py develop
..... [snip] .....
Finished processing dependencies for Trac==0.12.1dev-r10122

Install TracRPC:

(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/trac > cd ../tracrpc
(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/tracrpc > python setup.py develop
..... [snip] .....
Finished processing dependencies for TracXMLRPC==1.1.0-r8688

4. Run Tests

The functional Trac test suite uses twill, so that also becomes a dependency for the plugin tests. Install that first:

(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/tracrpc > easy_install twill
..... [snip] .....
Finished processing dependencies for twill

All should now be installed and working, and to make sure lets run the TracRPC tests:

(tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/tracrpc > python setup.py test
..... [snip] .....
Found Trac source: /Users/simon/dev/tracrpc/src/trac
Enabling RPC plugin and permissions...
Created test environment: /Users/simon/dev/tracrpc/src/tracrpc/rpctestenv
Starting web server: http://127.0.0.1:8765
..... [snip] .....
Ran 32 tests in 42.156s
OK
Stopping web server...

Yeah!

5. Inspect

Following a testrun, there is a complete working Trac project with Subversion repository in src/tracrpc/rpctestenv. This is useful for a number of reasons...

1. The project has debug logging enabled for the testrun, so by inspecting rpctestenv/trac/log/trac.log you can see all that happened server-side while executing the tests. The tests run in sequence, and there should be markers in the log indicating where each new tests starts.
2. You can run the trac environment, and access as anonymous or login using the user:user or admin:admin users created and used in testing:

   (tracrpc)simon: ~/dev/tracrpc/src/tracrpc > tracd --port=8888 --basic-auth="/,rpctestenv/htpasswd,trac" rpctestenv/trac
   

3. Running the Trac environment also means you can access the project using a client-side library, like the one from Python standard library - from a new shell:

   >>> import xmlrpclib
   >>> server = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy("http://admin:admin@localhost:8888/trac/login/xmlrpc")
   >>> print server.wiki.getPage('TitleIndex')
   = Welcome to Trac 0.12.1dev =
   ..... [snip] .....