firebait / sqlalchemy-fsm

SQLAlchemy finite state machine support

Finite state machine field for sqlalchemy (based on django-fsm)

sqlalchemy-fsm adds declarative states management for sqlalchemy models. Instead of adding some state field to a model, and manage its values by hand, you could use FSMState field and mark model methods with the transition decorator. Your method will contain the side-effects of the state change.

The decorator also takes a list of conditions, all of which must be met before a transition is allowed.

Usage

Add FSMState field to you model from sqlalchemy_fsm import FSMField, transition

class BlogPost(db.Model):
    state = db.Column(FSMField, nullable = False)

Use the transition decorator to annotate model methods

@transition(source='new', target='published')
def publish(self):
    """
    This function may contain side-effects, 
    like updating caches, notifying users, etc.
    The return value will be discarded.
    """

source parameter accepts a list of states, or an individual state. You can use * for source, to allow switching to target from any state.

If calling publish() succeeds without raising an exception, the state field will be changed, but not written to the database.

from sqlalchemy_fsm import can_proceed

def publish_view(request, post_id):
    post = get_object__or_404(BlogPost, pk=post_id)
    if not can_proceed(post.publish):
         raise Http404;

    post.publish()
    post.save()
    return redirect('/')

If your given function requires arguments to validate, you need to include them when calling can_proceed as well as including them when you call the function normally. Say publish() required a date for some reason:

if not can_proceed(post.publish, the_date):
    raise Http404
else:
    post.publish(the_date)

If you require some conditions to be met before changing state, use the conditions argument to transition. conditions must be a list of functions that take one argument, the model instance. The function must return either True or False or a value that evaluates to True or False. If all functions return True, all conditions are considered to be met and transition is allowed to happen. If one of the functions return False, the transition will not happen. These functions should not have any side effects.

You can use ordinary functions

def can_publish(instance):
    # No publishing after 17 hours
    if datetime.datetime.now().hour > 17:
       return False
    return True

Or model methods

def can_destroy(self):
    return self.is_under_investigation()

Use the conditions like this:

@transition(source='new', target='published', conditions=[can_publish])
def publish(self):
    """
    Side effects galore
    """

@transition(source='*', target='destroyed', conditions=[can_destroy])
def destroy(self):
    """
    Side effects galore
    """

How does sqlalchemy-fsm diverge from django-fsm?

• Can't commit data from within transition-decorated functions

• No pre/post signals

• Does support arguments to conditions functions