[Buildbot-devel] Dynamically updating text displayed in build step status

[Brian Warner]

[sorry for taking so long to respond.. poor Grig had to remind me several
times about this one]

> From: Grig Gheorghiu <grig at gheorghiu.net>
> 
> I've been trying to find ways to dynamically update the text that is
> displayed in the build step status in the HTML Waterfall page.
> ...
> However, I also wanted to be able to display a piece of information
> (such as a version number) that was computed by the slave running that
> build step.

>     def getText(self, cmd, results):
>         text = self.describe(True)
>         for elem in text:
>             if re.search("version", elem):
>                 return text
>         if results == WARNINGS:
>             text += ["warnings"]
>         if results == FAILURE:
>             text += ["failed"]
>         if self.version:
>             text += ["version=" + self.version]
>         return text

The problem here is that self.describe() is returning a list of strings, but
it isn't expecting anyone to mutate it. When you do 'text += ["warnings"]',
you're actually changing the class-wide value, which is why you see multiple
copies of the same text showing up later. (python expands 'l1 += l2' into
'l1.extend(l2)', which modifies l1 in place).

Instead, try something like this:

    def getText(self, cmd, results):
        text = self.describe(True)
        if results == WARNINGS:
            text = text + ["warnings"]
        if results == FAILURE:
            text = text + ["failed"]
        if self.version:
            text = text + ["version=" + self.version]
        return text

Each one of those 'text = text + []' statements will create a brand-new list,
so the original description is left unmodified.


> Question: am I on the right track here, or am I needlessly complicating
> my life?

This seems like a perfectly reasonable way to change the text based upon the
results of the step. You just ran into a slightly subtle python gotcha :).

cheers,
 -Brian