Create a more "pythonic" API

[metaodi]

The public API of osmapi is not very pythonic, it would be nice to create an alternative - more pythonic - API to be better integrated in the whole python world.

This starts with the camelcase naming of the methods, but also the lack of structure. I'm not yet sure how an ideal structure would look like, but maybe a classic OOP approach wouldn't be too bad, and then having a class for each type of OSM object.

But the current API should stay valid to not break existing code.

[austinhartzheim]

I am somewhat interested in working on this. But, I am wondering how you plan to remove the camel case without breaking existing code?

Some enhancements can be done within the current framework. For example, one might subclass dict as follows:

class Node(dict):

    def history(self):
        return osmapi.NodeHistory(self['id'])

    def relations(self):
        return osmapi.NodeRelations(self['id'])

In this case, the return line of NodeGet would become:

return Node(self._DomParseNode(data))

This is probably a rare case, but code depending on using type(node) might break. Also, it is still somewhat strange to use camel case here, but it is slightly better because it is returning a custom class instance.

Personally, I think it is better to create a new API. The current code looks easy enough to maintain if bugs are filed (and I can help maintain it). However, I am also unaware of what projects are currently using this API and how much work they would need to invest to update to a new API.

[metaodi]

@austinhartzheim I'm not yet sure how to approach this. But I guess you're on the right track. I'm not really afraid of a BC-break (maybe the new API would be major release 1.0), as the old code is quite stable and no one is forced to upgrade. But as this is kind of the go-to-package for python, it really annoys me, that it's not more "pythonic".

I'm planning a refactoring to split the code in files and remove all the HTTP code and replace it with requests. I wouldn't start this issue before that. But we might use this issue to figure out together what a good "pythonic" API could look like.

[metaodi]

Some notes based on Python Summit talk about API Design:

• Use verbs for methods, nouns for properties
• Use pythonic naming conventions (get rid of Java-style naming of methods)
• Split module by OSM type
• Try to keep parts of the old API if possible
• Ease the pain by issuing deprecation warning warnings.warn("...", DeprecationWarning)

[joeblankenship1]

I would love to contribute to this. Is there a plan in place to start restructuring the API? If the above points are the priority, I could start there.

[metaodi]

@joeblankenship1 I'm in the middle of refactoring to start this process (basically splitting up the library in several files). I'd suggest to use this issue to discuss how a good API would look like. Maybe add references to good examples etc.

As soon as I'm ready, I'll create a PR with my suggestions and would then be happy to receive feedback from all of you to improve it until we feel comfortable to release it.

[joeblankenship1]

Sounds good; I'll start doing some research!

[metaodi]

I want to deprecate the whole changesetauto logic as it's a lot of magic and especially the use of the destructor __del__ to close a changeset on destruction is very flaky (i.e. it is not guarenteed, that this code is run, or when it is run). I opened #89 to introduce the more pythonic context managers.

This would lead to code like that (including the more pythonic snake_case for methods):

import osmapi
osm = osmapi.OsmApi(username = "metaodi", password = "*******")
with osm.open_changeset(comment="Create test node") as changeset_id:
     print "Opened changeset %s" % changeset_id
     osm.create_node({"lon": 1, "lat": 1, "tag": {}})

The context manager (using the with keyword) would take care of the changeset as a resource and close it automatically after the with block.

This is roughly the same as this code of the current code base:

import osmapi
osm = osmapi.OsmApi(username = "metaodi", password = "*******")
changeset_id = osm.ChangesetCreate({"comment": "Create test node"})
print "Opened changeset %s" % changeset_id
osm.NodeCreate({"lon": 1, "lat": 1, "tag": {}})
osm.ChangesetClose()

[b-jazz]

But the current API should stay valid to not break existing code.

Just wanted to step in and remind everyone that the purpose of major release numbers (v2.0.0 vs v1.0.0) is to indicate changes that might break previous usage. I don't think you should be worried about breaking code. Just bump the major version and people that don't want to fix their code can lock into the v1.* versions.

[metaodi]

@b-jazz you're probably right 😉