PluginBase¶
Ever tried creating a plugin system for a Python application and you
discovered fighting against the import system? Me too. This is where
PluginBase comes in.
PluginBase is a module for Python which extends the import system for
the most common form of plugin usage which is providing a consistent
import experience for plugins from a variety of sources. Essentially it
allows you to build very flexible plugin based applications which pull in
plugins from bundled sources as well as application specific ones without
bypassing the Python import system.
How does it work? It’s super simple:
Step 1:
Create a “plugin base” object. It defines a pseudo package under
which all your plugins will reside. For instance it could be
yourapplication.plugins:
from pluginbase import PluginBase
plugin_base = PluginBase(package='yourapplication.plugins')
Step 2:
Now that you have a plugin base, you can define a plugin source
which is the list of all sources which provide plugins:
plugin_source = plugin_base.make_plugin_source(
searchpath=['./path/to/plugins', './path/to/more/plugins'])
Step 3:
To import a plugin all you need to do is to use the regular import
system. The only change is that you need to import the plugin
source through the with statement:
with plugin_source:
from yourapplication.plugins import my_plugin
my_plugin.do_something_cool()
Alternatively you can also import plugins programmatically instead of
using the import statement:
my_plugin = plugin_source.load_plugin('my_plugin')
For a more complex example see the one from the git repo:
pluginbase-example.
Installation¶
You can get the library directly from PyPI:
pip install pluginbase
FAQ¶
Q: Why is there a plugin base and a plugin source class?
This decision was taken so that multiple applications can co-exist
together. For instance imagine you have an application that
implements a wiki but you want multiple instances of that wiki
to exist in the same Python interpreter. The plugin sources split
out the load paths of the different applications.
Each instance of the wiki would have its own plugin source and they
can work independently of each other.
Q: Do plugins pollute sys.modules?
While a plugin source is alive the plugins do indeed reside in
sys.modules. This decision was make conciously so that as little
as possible of the Python library ecosystem breaks. However when the
plugin source gets garbage collected all loaded plugins will
also get garbage collected.
Q: How does PluginBase deal with different versions of the same plugin?
Each plugin source works indepdenently of each other. The way this
works is by internally translating the module name. By default that
module name is a random number but it can also be forced to a hash of
a specific value to make it stable across restarts which allows
pickle and similar libraries to work.
This internal module renaming means that
yourapplication.module.foo will internally be called
pluginbase._internalspace._sp7...be4 for instance. The same
plugin loaded from another plugin source will have a different
internal name.
Q: What happens if a plugin wants to import other modules?
All fine. Plugins can import from itself as well as other plugins
that can be located.
Q: Does PluginBase support pickle?
Yes, pickle works fine for plugins but it does require defining a
stable identifier when creating a plugin source. This could for
instance be a file system path:
plugin_source = base.make_plugin_source(
searchpath=[app.plugin_path],
identifier=app.config_filename)
Q: What happens if I import from the plugin module without the
plugin source activated through the with statement?
The import will fail with a descriptive error message explaining
that a plugin source needs to be activated.
Q: Can I automatically discover all modules that are available?
Yes you can. Just use the PluginSource.list_plugins() method
which returns a list of all plugins that a source can import.
Q: Why would I use this over setuptools based plugins?
PluginBase and setuptools based plugins solve very different problems
and are incompatible on an architectural point of view. PluginBase
does not solve plugin distribution through PyPI but allows plugins to
be virtualized from each other. Setuptools on the other hand is based
on PyPI based distribution but piggybacks on top of the regular import
system.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both of them. Setuptools
based plugins are very useful to extend libraries from other
libraries. For instance the Jinja2 template engine hooks into the
Babel library for internationalization through setuptools.
On the other hand applications distributed to users can benefit from a
PluginBase based system which allows them to take control over how
plugins are distributed and full separation from each other.
API¶
High Level¶
classpluginbase.PluginBase(package, searchpath=None)¶
The plugin base acts as a control object around a dummy Python
package that acts as a container for plugins. Usually each
application creates exactly one base object for all plugins.
Parameters:package – the name of the package that acts as the plugin base.
Usually this module does not exist. Unless you know
what you are doing you should not create this module
on the file system.
searchpath – optionally a shared search path for modules that
will be used by all plugin sources registered.
make_plugin_source(*args, **kwargs)¶
Creats a plugin source for this plugin base and returns it.
All parameters are forwarded to PluginSource.
package= None¶
the name of the dummy package.
searchpath= None¶
the default search path shared by all plugins as list.
classpluginbase.PluginSource(base, identifier=None, searchpath=None, persist=False)¶
The plugin source is what ultimately decides where plugins are
loaded from. Plugin bases can have multiple plugin sources which act
as isolation layer. While this is not a security system it generally
is not possible for plugins from different sources to accidentally
cross talk.
Once a plugin source has been created it can be used in a with
statement to change the behavior of the import statement in the
block to define which source to load the plugins from:
plugin_source = plugin_base.make_plugin_source(
searchpath=['./path/to/plugins', './path/to/more/plugins'])
with plugin_source:
from myapplication.plugins import my_plugin
Parameters:base – the base this plugin source belongs to.
identifier – optionally a stable identifier. If it’s not defined
a random identifier is picked. It’s useful to set this
to a stable value to have consistent tracebacks
between restarts and to support pickle.
searchpath – a list of paths where plugins are looked for.
persist – optionally this can be set to True and the plugins
will not be cleaned up when the plugin source gets
garbage collected.
base= None¶
A reference to the plugin base that created this source.
cleanup()¶
Cleans up all loaded plugins manually. This is necessary to
call only if persist is enabled. Otherwise this happens
automatically when the source gets garbage collected.
identifier= None¶
the identifier for this source.
list_plugins()¶
Returns a sorted list of all plugins that are available in this
plugin source. This can be useful to automatically discover plugins
that are available and is usually used together with
load_plugin().
load_plugin(name)¶
This automatically loads a plugin by the given name from the
current source and returns the module. This is a convenient
alternative to the import statement and saves you from invoking
__import__ or a similar function yourself.
Parameters:name – the name of the plugin to load.
mod= None¶
a reference to the module on the internal
pluginsource._internalspace.
open_resource(plugin, filename)¶
This function locates a resource inside the plugin and returns
a byte stream to the contents of it. If the resource cannot be
loaded an IOError will be raised. Only plugins that are
real Python packages can contain resources. Plain old Python
modules do not allow this for obvious reasons.
New in version 0.3.
Parameters:plugin – the name of the plugin to open the resource of.
filename – the name of the file within the plugin to open.
persist= False¶
indicates if this plugin source persists or not.
searchpath= None¶
a list of paths where plugins are searched in.
spaceid= None¶
The internal module name of the plugin source as it appears
in the pluginsource._internalspace.
pluginbase.get_plugin_source(module=None, stacklevel=None)¶
Returns the PluginSource for the current module or the given
module. The module can be provided by name (in which case an import
will be attempted) or as a module object.
If no plugin source can be discovered, the return value from this method
is None.
This function can be very useful if additional data has been attached
to the plugin source. For instance this could allow plugins to get
access to a back reference to the application that created them.
Parameters:module – optionally the module to locate the plugin source of.
stacklevel – defines how many levels up the module should search
for before it discovers the plugin frame. The
default is 0. This can be useful for writing wrappers
around this function.
Import Hook Control¶
pluginbase.import_hook.enable(self)¶
Enables the import hook which drives the plugin base system.
This is the default.
pluginbase.import_hook.disable(self)¶
Disables the import hook and restores the default import system
behavior. This effectively breaks pluginbase but can be useful
for testing purposes.
pluginbase.import_hook.enabled¶
Indicates if the import hook is currently active or not.
Internals¶
pluginbase._internalspace= ¶
This module is where pluginbase keeps track of all loaded plugins.
Generally one can completely ignore the existence of it, but in some
situations it might be useful to discover currently loaded modules
through this when debugging.