helper functions for API pagetests

[Edwin Grubbs]

cprov suggested that helper functions automatically hide the api version from urls appearing in the responses from webservice.get(). For example:
    def show(thing):
        if isinstance(thing, dict):
            thing = sorted("%s: %s" % (name, value.replace('api.launchpad.dev/beta', '...')
                                   for name, value in thing.iteritems())
        pprint(thing)

One downside to this is that the pagetest won't print out the full url when the actual output doesn't match the expected output.

[Celso Providelo (cprov)]

We could even inspect the API objects using something more precise than iteritems() and wrap URL values as testable objects lile:

{{{
class ApiUrl:

    def __init__(self, url):
         self.url = url
         (self.scheme, self.host, self.path, params_unused,
          query_unused, fragment_unused) = urlparse(url)

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.path)

    def __repr__(self):
         return str(self)
}}}

[Diogo Matsubara (matsubara)]

One thing is not clear in this report, why is it a good thing to hide the api version? Is it causing problems writing pagetests or something?

[Celso Providelo (cprov)]

I believe it's because, both, host and version are not necessarily important for all tests and are extensively repeated in our test-suite compromising its readability.