gestalt

gestalt

Gestalt is a library for managing configuration information for node.js applications. The main premise of gestalt is that the underlying configuration for an application may change while the application is still running. Gestalt provides a framework detecting and reacting to these changes without having to completely restart your application.

There are a couple of motivations for gestalt: Configuration of a large software system is often complicated - there are of course many tools out there for gathering configuration information from a bunch of different sources. nconf for node is a good one, and gestalt is to some extent based upon it. Gestalt is also influenced by configliere for ruby and the configuration node structure of chef. However, there are a couple of things that many of these tools do not do well. First, configuration files (and other sources) can change, and it would be nice to be able to react to these changes on-the-fly. Second, for a sufficiently complicated system of default and override configuration sources, it can become difficult to figure out exactly where a particular setting came from.

Gestalt solves both of these problems. It has a per-value event change tracking system so that you can track changes to individual settings to your configuration. It also rigorously keeps track of where the values for particular settings came from.

Basics

The basic object is a Configuration:

var gestalt = require('gestalt');
var options = {source: 'Source'};
var config = new gestalt.Configuration( options );

// config.set( name, value, source )
config.set("x", 'stuff');   // source defaults to the config source
config.set("y", 6, 'HERE'); // but source can be set per-value

var x = config.get("x");  // returns 'stuff'
var y = config.get("y");  // returns 6

Configuration names are hierarchical - use a ':' to delimit namespaces. The namespaces become nested Configuration objects.

config.set("owner:name", 'Joe');
config.set("owner:phone", '5551234');

var ownerConfig = config.get('owner'); // another Configuration object
var owner = ownerConfig.toObject();    // convert to a plain javascript object:
                                       // { name: 'Joe', phone: '5551234' }
 

Values can be primative values (numbers, strings, booleans, etc.). By default, assignments of structured objects get destructured into nested Configuration objects.

config.set("neighbor", {name: 'Fred', phone: '5559876'} );
var fred_phone = config.get( 'neighbor:phone' );

( The default destructuring of assignments can be disabled. See the destructure_assignments and destructure_arrays options, below. )

It is possible to turn a configuration object back into a regular object. Also, if a configuration object looks like an array (all integer keys...) toObject will in fact return an array.

Events

Configuration objects are EventEmitters. When a value of a configuration object changes, it emits a 'change' event.

config.on('change', function( change) {
    console.log("name: %s, value: %s, old_value: %s, source: %s ",
        change.name, change.value, change.old_value, change.source);
});

config.set("owner:phone", "5554444", "phone book");
// listener prints
// name: owner:phone, value: 5554444, old_value: 5551234, source: phone book

The nested configuration objects are also event emitters. Note that the configuration names in the events are reported relative to the configuration object being listening to.

Configuration objects also have a ready/invalid/other state. When everything about the configuration is loaded the way it expects that it should be, it enters a 'ready' state. If something has gone wrong in a way that might require some attention, it enters an 'invalid' state. Other states are possible - most configuration objects start in a 'not ready' state, but particular implementations might add some other special states.

State propagates from children to parents and from contained objects to containers. The parent/container will become invalid if any of its children/contents become 'invalid'. Also, a parent/container will only become 'ready' if all of its children/contents are 'ready'. If no sub-configuration is invalid, but not all of them are ready, parents and containers become 'not ready'.

On state transitions (and whenever further 'invalid' states are encountered) configuration objects will emit a 'state' message. The payload object is of the form:

{ state: 'ready',
  old_state: 'not ready',
  data: 'arbitrary data that might help explain the transition'
}

To reiterate, there are three main states a Configuration object can be in:

• 'ready' This means that there were no problems getting to the configuration data. You can read data from it, and set up listeners. Note that a configuration can only be in a ready state if all of its dependencies are also ready.

• 'invalid' Something has gone wrong. We may not be able to get in contact with the data source, or there may have been a problem parsing the data. In any case, the data contained in the configuration object may be corrupt, out of date, or wrong. When a configuration object goes into an 'invalid' state, the program should stop consuming configuration data from the object and seek a way to remedy the invalid state. If any of an objects depencencies is in an invalid state, the object will also be invalid.

• 'not ready', (and others). The configuration object is not ready for reads. It will send out another 'state' event when it is ready or when something actually goes wrong. 'not ready' states are not an error state, but while a configuration is in a 'not ready' state, you may not be able to rely on the contents to be accurate, up to date, or even present.

Containers

The ConfigContainer class gives you a way to set up a system of defaults and overrides of configuration information that comes from different sources. For instance, if you allow configuration parameters to be set at the command line, in environment variables, or from a configuration file, this class can help you out.

var override = new gestalt.Configuration({source: "Override"});
var def = new gestalt.Configuration({source: "Default"});
var container = new gestalt.ConfigContainer({source: "Container"});

container.addOverride( override );
container.addDefault(def);

container.on( 'change',function(change) { 
    console.log("%j", change ); 
});

def.set("a",1);
// logs {"name":"a", "value":1, "source":"Default" }

container.set("a",2);
// logs {"name":"a", "value":2, "old_value": 1, "source":"Container" }

override.set("a",3);
// logs {"name":"a", "value":3, "old_value": 2, "source":"Override" }

container.set("a",4);
// logs nothing - overall value does not change

def.set("a",5);
// also logs nothing

container.remove("a");
// logs nothing

override.remove("a");
// logs {"name":"a", "value":5, "old_value":3, "source":"Default" }

Remap Configs

Configuration files are often structured, while environment variables and command line arguments are usually not structured. However, it is often the case that a program will use an environment variable or a command line argument to override a setting in a structured document. RemapConfig objects give you a formal way to show exactly what part of the structure a given command line argument will override.

The constructor for RemapConfig expects to see a couple of options in the options argument. First, it needs a reference to the original configuration object that is being remapped. Second, it needs a function that will map names from the original object into the new object space.

var gestalt       = require('../lib/gestalt'),
    Configuration = gestalt.Configuration,
    RemapConfig   = gestalt.RemapConfig; 


function mapper(old) {
    // map names that start with "f" to
    // new:<old_name>
    if( old.match(/^f/ )) {
	return "new:" + old;	
    } else {
	// ignore everything else
	return undefined;
    }
}

var c = new Configuration();
c.set("foo",1);
c.set("gak",4);

var r = new RemapConfig( { mapper: mapper, original: c } );

console.log( r.get('new:foo') );
// prints out "1"

The mapper can be a function as above, or it can be a simple java object with old values as keys and new values as corresponding values. Keys not present in the object will be mapped out of the RemapConfig.

Not surprisingly, there are a couple of restrictions on this type of configuration object. First, it is read only. Second, the mapper function can show that it ignores part of the object space by returning undefined for some values. For the rest of the values, it must make sure to return unique new names for different old names.

Remapped objects do pass on events, and can be used as overrides or defaults in a config container.

API

Configuration

A Configuration object is a container of name value pairs. The names can include colon separated hierarchical namespaces.

• constructor Configuration( options )

Creates a configuration object. Options include

• source

The default source for changes to this object. If no source is given for a set operation on the Configuration, the default is used instead. Note that only the initial value of this option is important. If it is changed with the options() method, it will not change the default source for an object.

• destructure_assignments

By default, this option is on. When turned on, if you try to assign an object or an array to a name in the configuration, it will destructure the object into nested namespace structures.

• desctructure_arrays

This option is similar to destructure_assignments, only it only controls whether or not to destructure array objects. It is true by default - when changed to false, arrays will be valid configuration values.

Note, if you turn off destructure_arrays or destructure_assignments, the configuration object will not react to internal changes in the structured values. In particular;

  config.set("a",[1,2,3]); // emits a change
  congig.get("a")[0] = 7   // !!! does not emit a change !!!

• initial_state

State to transition to after initialization. Defaults to 'ready' for many configuration objects. Defaults to 'not ready' for files, zookeeper, and other objects that load asynchonously. Note that the configuration object is created in a 'not ready' state, and the transizion to its initial_state actually happens in the next tick after creation.

Methods

• get(name)

Returns the value assigned to 'name', or undefined if not present. Namespaces are separated by colons. If name is an array, it is treated the same as if it were a single string joined together by colons.

• getValSource(name)

The same as get, only instead of the assigned value, it returns an object that contains a value and a source field. The value is the same as the value one would expect from get. The source field contains the source of the value.

• set(name, value, source)

Sets the value of name. If no source is given, the default source for the Configuration is used. If the configuration object does not have a default source, then the source becomes a reference to the line number and file of the function calling set.

• update(name, value, source)

For standard Configuration objects, update works the same as set, except that if no source is provided in the update call, the configuration's default source is not used. For ConfigContainers, update and set have different behaviors.

• has(name)

Returns true if there is a value defined for the given name.

• keys()

Returns an array containing all of the keys that have assigned values in the configuration.

• each( function( value, name, configuration ) )

Iterates through the keys and values of the configuration, calling the supplied function once for each setting.

• remove(name)

Deletes the name from the configuration.

• report( )

Generates a detailed report (on console.log) of all of the names.

• toObject()

Builds a javascript object representing the current state of the Configuration. Namespaces are converted to nested objects. If a namespace has the appearance of an array in that its internal names are sequential numbers starting with 0, it will be converted into an array instead of a regular object. The resultant object will not generate any events and will not have source attribution.

• options( options )

Returns the options object for the Configuration. If passed an object, it will use it to override the existing options. Note that changing the options of a Configuration does not change the options of existing nested namespace configurations, but it will affect any namespaces created after the change.

• addPatternListener(pattern, callback )

Calls the callback whenever there is a change to the configuration that matches the pattern. Pattern could be a string, or a regex, in which cases match means that the name of the changed value either equals the string or matches the regex respectively. Pattern could also be a function which return a truthy value if the change matches its criteria.

• removePatternListener( callback )

Removes a previously added listener callback.

• state( state, data )

If no arguments are given, it returns the current state of the object. If a state it given, it transitions the configuration to that state. If the object's state has actually changed (or if we get another 'invalid' when it was already in an invalid state) it will emit a 'state' event, passing the data argument on in the state change payload along with the new and old states.

Events

• change

Change events are emitted whenever the Configuration object detects that something has changed in the data. The handlers to these events are passed an object describing the change:

 change = { name: "a:b:c",        // name of the value that changed
            value: 5,             // the new value
            old_value: undefined, // old value
            source: "X"};         // the source of the change or the last value (for deletions)

• state

When the object's state changes between 'invalid', 'ready' and 'not ready', it will emit 'state' events of the form:

 
  state = { state: 'ready',          // new state value
            old_state: 'invalid',    // state we are transitioning to
            data: 'good now'         // data passed in by the config.state() method.
          };

ConfigContainer

gestalt's mechanism to deal with the notion of default and override behavior is implemented in the ConfigContainer object. ConfigContainers contain a list or priority ordered configuration objects. Calling 'get(name)' on the ConfigContainer will return the value assigned to the highest priority configuration that has a value set for that name.

• constructor ConfigContainer( options )

Takes the same options as a Configuration object, but will also accept

-config

A configuration object to act as the 'normal' object. See 'set' and 'update' below. If no config option is given, a new object will be created as the 'normal' object;

Methods

All of the public methods of the Configuration object should work on a ConfigContainer, however the semantics of a few of them are a little different.

• get(name)

Returns the value associated with the name of the highest priority object containing a defined value for the name.

• set(name, value, source)

Calls 'set' on the 'normal' priority configuration object.

• update(name, value, source)

Calls 'update' on the highest prior configuration that has a value already set for 'name'. If none have defined 'name', then call 'update' on the 'normal' priority object.

• keys()

Returns the union of all of the keys in all of the contained configuration objects.

• has(name)

Returns true if the name is in the result of calling keys()

• each()

Works the same as Configuration's each method, but the values are as determined by the highest priority configuration object that has a value for the given key.

• addOverride( config )

Adds a configuration object to the priority list of configurations as the highest priority object.

• addDefault( config )

Adds a configuration object to the priority list as the lowest priority config object.

RemapConfig

The RemapConfig object provides a way to change the names of a configuration without changing the values. This useful for changing the names that come from environment variables or command line variables into names that match up with the configuration hierarchy established in a configuraiton file - making it possible to use the override and default behaviors from a ConfigContainer object.

• constructor RemapConfig( options )

Takes the same options as a Configuration object, but will also accept

-config (mandatory)

The configuration object to remap.

-mapper (mandatory)

Specifies how to remap configuration names. This can either be a function of the form:

remap = function(old_value) {
    var new_value = "a:b:c:" + old_value;
    return new_value;
}

or it can be a flat javascript object with old names as keys and new names as values.

Names that get mapped to 'undefined' by a remap function, or that are not present in the remap object, will simply not be included in the resultant object.

Methods

All of the Configuration public methods are supported, with the following additions and modifications:

• original()

Returns a reference to the unmapped configuration object.

• set()

Does nothing - remap objects are read only at this time.

• update()

Does nothing - remap objects are read only at this time.

• remove()

Does nothing - remap objects are read only at this time.

ConfigArgs

This is a standard Configuration object that pulls its name and value pairs from parsing the command line arguments with the optimist library. In addition to the standard configuration options, it will also accept the following:

• argv

Use the array instead of the arguments in process.argv

• optimist_usage

String to pass on to optimist as a usage string. ( Uses optimist's "usage" method. )

• optimist_options

Object to pass on to optimist as a configuration options. ( Uses optimist's "usage" method. )

ConfigEnv

This is a standard Configuration object that pulls its name and value pairs from parsing the environmental variables. In addition to the standard configuration options, it will also accept the following:

• env

Use this set of name value pairs instead of process.env.

ConfigFile

This is a standard Configuration object that draws its names and values from a configuration file. In addition to the standard options, ConfigFiles accept the following:

• format

Tells what format the file is in. Current options are 'json', 'yaml' and 'ini'.

• source

Tells what file to read - gets passed to fs.readFile.

• watch

Boolean. If set to true, the constructed ConfigFile object will set up a watch for changes to the underlying file. If it changes on disk, ConfigFile will reload the file and update any changed values.