GangaBox

Purpose of GangaBox

The GangaBox was coded as a response to Bug 46033; and should allow a user to store any Ganga Object in an easy to understand way, associating a custom name with each object

User Interface

The Box implements and exports most of the python dict methods:

__getitem__, __setitem__, __delitem__, __len__, __contains__, clear, get, has_key, items, keys, values

This means most commands that work on dicts also work on the box. Renaming objects is currently not possible, one simple idea would be:

box.rename(old_name, new_name)

Typing 'box' on the command line prints the contents of the box:

Out[4]: Contents of the box:
      Name |     Category | Type
--------------------------------------
      test | applications | AthenaMC
     myLCG |     backends | LCG

It additionally has a help() method, that prints a short summary:

To show the contents of the box, just type 'box'

To put an object in the box, type:
box['precious object'] = object

To access an object in the box, type:
box['interesting thing']

To remove an object from the box, type:
del box['worthless stuff']

 (the names of the objects can be freely chosen) 

Technical Summary

• The GangaBox has its own XML repository at gangadir/box.xml
• There can be multiple boxes with different names, but at the moment only one box, named 'box' is defined.
• The Box saves the repository on exit, on object insertion or every 30 seconds (in case of a crash)
• It has simple timestamp locking, so one box will only be available from one ganga session.
• The code is only 200 lines

Obtaining GangaBox

http://homepages.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~Johannes.Ebke/GangaBox.py

Responsible: -- JohannesEbke - 04 May 2009