0x00. AirBnB clone - The console

We are aspiring to be Web developers and Software Engineers. At ALX SE Programme, one of the requirements that makes you standout and become a formidable Software Engineer, is to create an AirBnB Clone. You do not just roll out these solutions but rather, approach it one at a time. Our first step to developing this web application is to create a Command Line Interpreter (CLI) to help us manage our projects' objects. This step is very important because we will be building and including static and dynamic contents: HTML/CSS/JS templates, DB storage, File Storage, API (Application Proramming Interface) and Front-End Integration.

What is a CLI (Command Line Interpreter)?

A CLI is a text-based User-Interface (UI) that runs commands and programes. It manages computer files and interact with the computer. Do you remember the Shell? It’s exactly the same but limited to a specific use-case. In our case, we want to be able to manage the objects of our project:

• Create a new object (ex: a new User or a new Place)
• Retrieve an object from a file, a database etc…
• Do operations on objects (count, compute stats, etc…)
• Update attributes of an object
• Destroy an object

Learning Objectives

During and after the cause of this project, we will be able to do the following:

• Know how to create a Python package
• Know how to create a CLI in Python using the cmd module
• Know what is Unit testing and how to implement it in a large project
• Know how to serialize and deserialize a Class
• Know how to write and read a JSON file
• Know how to manage datetime
• Know what is an UUID
• Know what is *args and how to use it
• Know what is **kwargs and how to use it
• Know how to handle named arguments in a function

Requirements

Python Scripts

• Allowed editors: vi, vim, emacs
• All your files will be interpreted/compiled on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS using python3 (version 3.8.5)
• All your files should end with a new line
• The first line of all your files should be exactly #!/usr/bin/python3
• A README.md file, at the root of the folder of the project, is mandatory
• Your code should use the pycodestyle (version 2.8.*)
• All your files must be executable
• The length of your files will be tested using wc
• All your modules should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").__doc__)')
• All your classes should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").MyClass.__doc__)')
• All your functions (inside and outside a class) should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").my_function.__doc__)' and python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").MyClass.my_function.__doc__)')
• A documentation is not a simple word, it’s a real sentence explaining what’s the purpose of the module, class or method (the length of it will be verified)

Python Unit Tests

• Allowed editors: vi, vim, emacs
• All your files should end with a new line
• All your test files should be inside a folder ./tests
• You have to use the unittest module
• All your test files should be python files (extension: .py)
• All your test files and folders should start by test_
• Your file organization in the tests folder should be the same as your project

• e.g., For models/base_model.py, unit tests must be in: tests/test_models/test_base_model.py

• e.g., For models/user.py, unit tests must be in: tests/test_models/test_user.py

• All your tests should be executed by using this command: python3 -m unittest discover tests
• You can also test file by file by using this command: python3 -m unittest tests/test_models/test_base_model.py
• All your modules should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").__doc__)')
• All your classes should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").MyClass.__doc__)')
• All your functions (inside and outside a class) should have a documentation (python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").my_function.__doc__)' and python3 -c 'print(__import__("my_module").MyClass.my_function.__doc__)')

Program Build-up

We will be building this AirBnB Clone web application phase by phase using the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)

• Problem Definition / Plan
• Solution Requirements and Analysis
• Solution Design using algorithms, flowcharts, and pseudocodes
• Implementation using a choice Programming Language
• Solution Testing
• Deployment
• Maintenance

Note: The problem definition, requirements are already done for us. We only need to design a clone of the original using our own design, implement our code with our choice programming language which in this project is Python Programming Language and test our implementations using Python's unittest module.

Classes Needed in this Project

Classes -->	BaseModel	User	State	City	Amenity	Place	Review	FileStorage
Public Instance Attributes	id created_at updated_at	Inherits from BaseModel	Inherits from BaseModel	Inherits from BaseModel	Inherits from BaseModel	Inherits from BaseModel	Inherits from BaseModel	---
Public Instance Methods	save() to_dict()	---	---	---	---	---	---	all() new() save() reload()
Public Class Attributes	---	email first_name last_name password	name	name state_id	name	city_id user_id name description number_rooms number_bathrooms max_guest price_by_night latitude longitude amenity_ids	place_id user_id text	---
Private Class Attributes	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	__file_path __objects

How Program is Executed

Your shell should work like this in interactive mode

$ ./console.py
(hbnb) help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit

(hbnb) 
(hbnb) 
(hbnb) quit
$

But also in non-interactive mode: (like the Shell project in C)

$ echo "help" | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
$
$ cat test_help
help
$
$ cat test_help | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
$

AirBnB Clone Console Usage

How to Start The Console

The AirBnB Clone console can be run both interactively and non-interactively.

Running in the Non-Interactive Mode

$ echo "help" | python3 console.py
(hbnb)
Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  all  create  destroy  help  quit  show  update

(hbnb)
$

or

$ echo "help" | ./console.py
(hbnb)
Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  all  create  destroy  help  quit  show  update

(hbnb)
$

Alternatively, it can be run in interactive mode, run the file console.py by itself:

Running in the Interactive Mode

$ ./console.py
(hbnb)

or

$ python3 console.py
(hbnb)

In this README or guide, we will be making most of the documentation with the interactive mode.
When you execute the above command, it displays a prompt (hbnb). This is the prompt required of the project and it awaits inputs from the user.

Quiting the Console

To quit the console, you can type in any of the following:

• EOF
• quit

or do the following key combinations on your keyboard

• CMD+D (Unix) / CRTL+C (Windows)

(hbnb) quit
$

or

(hbnb) EOF
$

or

(hbnb) (CTRL+C)
$

Getting Help

To get help generally

(hbnb) help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  all  create  destroy  help  quit  show  update

(hbnb)

To get help for a particular command

(hbnb) help all

The `all` command displays the string representation of all class instances present in the storage.

Usage:
(hbnb) all User

(hbnb) help update

The `update` command update a specified instance of a using the class name and the ID of the instance, and and the specifying the attribute to update or adding a new attribute plus the value.

Usage:
(hbnb) update User 1234-5678 email 'test@oop.com'

(hbnb)

Presently, we have nothing in the flat file database, We will create a New User and a BaseModel

(hbnb) all
[]
(hbnb)

Firstly, we have to get help on how to create an instance of a model and what models are available

$ ./console.py
(hbnb) help create

The `create` command creates an instance of a class, saves it to the storage and prints out the ID of the instance created.

Models available includes:

        Amenity
        BaseModel
        City
        Place
        Review
        State
        User

Usage:
(hbnb) create User

(hbnb)

To create a New User model, we type create User and it returns the ID of the User model created

(hbnb) create User
97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
(hbnb)

To display the details of the User model that was created,

(hbnb) show User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
[User] (97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb) {'id': '97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb', 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 16, 37, 181187), 'updated_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 16, 37, 181187)}
(hbnb)

To update the details of the User model created, we can specify a new attribute and supply a value for the new attribute or specify an existing attribute and give a new value to replace the previous value.

(hbnb) update User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb nationality "Nigerian"
(hbnb)

(hbnb) show User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
[User] (97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb) {'id': '97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb', 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 16, 37, 181187), 'updated_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 21, 11, 714225), 'nationality': 'Nigerian'}
(hbnb)

(hbnb) update User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb email "test.user@email.com"
(hbnb) show User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
[User] (97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb) {'id': '97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb', 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 16, 37, 181187), 'updated_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 13, 13, 24, 24, 386540), 'nationality': 'Nigerian', 'email': 'test.user@email.com'}
(hbnb)

To remove a model from the flat file database,

(hbnb) destroy User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
(hbnb) all
[]
(hbnb) all User
[]
(hbnb) show User 97bf8455-58aa-4d65-a83e-32699de58bbb
** no instance found **
(hbnb)

---

The program is interactive and the documentation from the help file is leading enough.

Authors

Bright Iniabasi @Brightini, and Dukeson Ehigboria @Sampul-CodeMine are formidable Interns at the ALX Africa Software Engineering programme 2022 / 2023 schedule.