How To Use The Results Helper

Here we document some important Result methods.

print_result_as_table()

The print_result_as_table() method uses the results in a Results() object to print a rich formatted table. The value of the results may be any kind of type but there is some magic if the type is a dict. See the following examples for clarification.

Results with int

If you push results with an int as value you can print a pretty table with every result as a line. The name of the result will be the first column and the value will be the second table.

from fotoobo.helpers import result
res = result.Result()
res.push_result("host1", 1)
res.push_result("host2", 2)
res.all_results()

{'host1': 1, 'host2': 2}

res.print_result_as_table()

┌───────┬───┐
│ host1 │ 1 │
│ host1 │ 2 │
└───────┴───┘

With the auto_header argument set to True you may also print headers. With simple data types the headers for the both columns are always key and value. Of course you could always rename these headers with the headers argument.

res.print_result_as_table(auto_header=True)

┏━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┓
┃ key   ┃ value ┃
┡━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━┩
│ host1 │ 1     │
│ host2 │ 2     │
└───────┴───────┘

Other simple data types which behave the same are str, float or bool. All these types may be mixed in a single Results() object.

Results with list

Lists in a results value are not interpreted as a complex data type and therefore just printed as a pretty list. None of the lists or list items are interpreted as special or interesting data. Like with other simple data types results with lists as values always print a table with two columns. The same applies for tuples.

from fotoobo.helpers import result
res = result.Result()
res.push_result("host1", ["a", "b", "d"])
res.push_result("host2", ["x", "y", "z"])
res.all_results()

{'host1': ['a', 'b', 'd'], 'host2': ['x', 'y', 'z']}

res.print_result_as_table()

┌───────┬──────────┐
│ host1 │ [        │
│       │     "a", │
│       │     "b", │
│       │     "d"  │
│       │ ]        │
│ host2 │ [        │
│       │     "x", │
│       │     "y", │
│       │     "z"  │
│       │ ]        │
└───────┴──────────┘

Like with other simple datatypes results with lists or tuples may be mixed arbitrary.

Results with dict

Here we bring some magic into the game. Whenever you push a dict to a result the table printed will use the keys of the dict as columns. With this given it is very important that every dict in all results have the same keys (names and sequence must match). As a best practice always use loop generated dicts whenever you need them as results.

from fotoobo.helpers import result
res = result.Result()
res.push_result("host1", {
    "version": 1,
    "build": 2000,
    "host": "host1.local"
})
res.push_result("host2", {
    "version": 2,
    "build": 2020,
    "host": "host2.local"
})
res.all_results()

{'host1': {'version': 1, 'build': 2000, 'host': 'host1.local'}, 'host2': {'version': 2, 'build': 2020, 'host': 'host2.local'}}

res.print_result_as_table()

┌───────┬───┬──────┬─────────────┐
│ host1 │ 1 │ 2000 │ host1.local │
│ host2 │ 2 │ 2020 │ host2.local │
└───────┴───┴──────┴─────────────┘

You see that the keys of the dicts are not visible with standard output. Use the auto_header argument the show the dict keys as column headers.

res.print_result_as_table(auto_header=True)

┏━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ key   ┃ version ┃ build ┃ host        ┃
┡━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ host1 │ 1       │ 2000  │ host1.local │
│ host2 │ 2       │ 2020  │ host2.local │
└───────┴─────────┴───────┴─────────────┘

Of course you may also use the headers argument if you’d like to customize header names.

Results with dict when dicts are not consistent

With the magic we use with dicts in results you’ll get unwanted output if you mix types or change the key names or order.

from fotoobo.helpers import result
res = result.Result()
res.push_result("host1", {
    "version": 1,
    "build": 2000,
    "host": "host1.local"
})
res.push_result("host2", {
    "host": "host2.local",
    "version": 2
})
res.push_result("host3", "text")
res.all_results()

{'host1': {'version': 1, 'build': 2000, 'host': 'host1.local'}, 'host2': {'host': 'host2.local', 'version': 2}, 'host3': 'text'}

res.print_result_as_table(auto_header=True)

┏━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ key   ┃ version     ┃ build ┃ host        ┃
┡━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ host1 │ 1           │ 2000  │ host1.local │
│ host2 │ host2.local │ 2     │             │
│ host3 │ text        │       │             │
└───────┴─────────────┴───────┴─────────────┘

You would expect a table which looks like the line for host1. But for host2 you recognize that the hostname is in the wrong column. This is because the order of the key value pairs in the dict does not match the ordering of the first result. With host3 which not even has a dict as value you see that the value given is just printed in the second column.

Conclusion: Stay consequent with dicts in results!

print_table_raw()

The method print_table_raw() takes the data to print as first argument. You always have to pass a list of dicts or it will raise an exception. Every item in the list will result in a line in the table and every key in the dict will represent a column. The table will only contain the values in the dicts whereas the keys will be interpreted as colum headers. It is very important that every dict in all results have the same keys (names and sequence must match). As a best practice always use loop generated dicts whenever you need them in a table.

from fotoobo.helpers import result
res = result.Result()
data = [
    {
        "key": "host1",
        "version": 1,
        "build": 2000,
        "host": "host1.local"
    },
    {
        "key": "host2",
        "version": 2,
        "build": 2020,
        "host": "host2.local"
    }
]
res.print_table_raw(data, auto_header=True)

┏━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ key   ┃ version ┃ build ┃ host        ┃
┡━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ host1 │ 1       │ 2000  │ host1.local │
│ host2 │ 2       │ 2020  │ host2.local │
└───────┴─────────┴───────┴─────────────┘