Functions¶

Functions or user functions (ufuncs for short) are functions, that are exposed to users. User functions can be given in the URLs, for example /my/Data?select(x, y)&sort(-z), in prepare statements of manifest files or other places.

User provided formulas are paresed into abstract syntax tree and then interpreted using functions registered with a spinta.core.ufuncs.ufunc.resolver or spinta.core.ufuncs.ufunc.resolver decorator.

In order to make your function registered, make sure, that module is added to spinta.config.py:CONFIG['commands']['modules']. All modules added to config are imported automatically at import time and on import all @ufunc.resolver and @ufunc.executro functions are registered.

Abstract syntax tree¶

User provided formulas are parsed using spinta.spyna module. For example select(x, y) will be parsed into:

{
    'name': 'select',
    'args': [
        {'name': 'bind', 'args': ['x']},
        {'name': 'bind', 'args': ['y']},
    ]
}

This is done by spinta.spyna.parse function.

Then there is a spinta.core.ufuncs.asttoexpr function, responsible for converting dicts and lists into spinta.core.ufuncs.Expr instances:

from spinta.core.ufuncs import Expr

Expr(
    'select'
    Expr('bind', 'x'),
    Expr('bind', 'y'),
)

Expr class adds some additional utilities to make working with AST easier. For example:

str(Expr('bind', 'x')) returns unparsed version, in this case it will be just x.
bind = Expr('bind'); bind('x') - you can call Expr instances, like a normal functions, and these calls returns another Expr instance with call arguments. Keyword arguments are supported too.
Expr('bind', 'x').resove(env) - this is a bit more complicated, Expr.resolve method will resolve all arguments of a given expresion on a given environment and returns resolved arguments as args, kwargs tuple.

For example, in this case if Expr('bind', 'x') is called on a PgQueryBuilder environment, then x will be resolved into a table column.

Environments¶

Environment is used as formula evaluation context, where an initial state is given and modified during abstract syntax tree evaluation.

Basically each AST node is interpreted on a given envoronment.

All environments are subclasses of spinta.core.ufuncs.Env class. By default Env class these properties:

this - represents current object.
context - represents global Spinta context, where you can access various global instances.

All other properties are added by specific environemtns. Here are a few specific environments:

PgQueryBuilder - builds a sqlalchemy query for internal PostgreSQL backend.
SqlQueryBuilder - builds a sqlalchemy query for external SQL databases.
SqlQueryBuilder - builds arguments for sqlalchemy engine.
SqlResultBuilder - transforms results returned by a backend, this is used to add additional more complex transformations that are not suppored natively by a backend.

And there are many more.

As you can see, some environements are very similar and share common functioonality, adding only some environment specific features.

Usually environments are initialized like this:

# Create an Env sintace.
env = SqlQueryBuilder(context)

# Set initial state.
env = evn.update(
    backend=backend,
    model=model,
    table=table,
)

# Resolve expression arguments on a given context, into Python objects.
expr = env.resolve(ast)

# Execute final expression with resolved arguments.
qry = env.execute(expr)

All environemnts are initialized with an initial state, then given AST is resolved on a given context into Python objects and finally, AST node (or expression) is executed with resolved arguments.

For example if we have a formula like this: print(2 + 2), then:

ast = Expr('print', Expr('add', 2, 2))
env = Env(context)
expr = env.resolve(ast)  # -> Expr('print', 4)
env.execute(expr)        # -> print(4)

Here env.resolve(ast) resolves arguments by recursively calling env.resolve(ast) on each AST argument.

If ast is not an Expr, then it returns it as is, but if ast is an Expr, then it tries to find a resolver function registered with @ufunc.resolver() decorator, calls that function with ast as arguments and returns its result.

Similar thing can be done manually by calling env.call('add', 2, 2), call method find a resolver function named add and calls it with arguments 2 and 2, without resolving arguments before call.

Resolver functions¶

Resolver functions are called by Env.resolve and Env.call methods. Resolver functions are responsible for interpreting given arguments on a given context.

There are two ways, how a resolver function can be registered:

Register a function that is responsible for resolving arguments manually:
```
from spinta.core.ufuncs import ufunc

@ufunc.resolver(Env, Expr)
def add(env: Env, expr: Expr):
    args, kwargs = expr.resolve(env)
    return sum(args)
```
This is mainly used, when you need to take multiple arguments and do something with it. Like in this example, function can be called like this add(2, 2, 2, 2).

If such function is registered, then it will always be called ignoring all other functions with the same name and different arguments. If you need to call another function dispatched by argument types, then you need to do it manually, because automatic dispatch by arguments types will be turned off.
Register a function that is dispatched by arguments automatically resolved before function is called:
```
from spinta.core.ufuncs import ufunc

@ufunc.resolver(Env, int, int)
def add(env: Env, a: int, b: int):
    return a + b

@ufunc.resolver(Env, str, str)
def add(env: Env, a: int, b: int):
    return int(a) + int(b)
```
In this case, this function will only be called, if function is called with two arguments and both arguments are of int type.

This way, you can define multiple add withcions, for different argument types.

Resolver functions, or ufuncs are always dispathed by argument types, that means, same function can do different things, on different environments.

So common functionally should be implemented on top of Env, but environemnt specific functionality should be emplemented on a specific Env subclass.