5. Use Python for scripting inside and outside containers

Date: 2022-11-30

Status

Accepted

Context

Inside the container, we use the ibek tool for scripting. Outside we use ec from epics-containers-cli.

Much of what these tools do is call command line tools like docker, helm, kubectl, compilers, etc. This seems like a natural fit for bash scripts.

These features were originally implemented in bash but were converted to python for the following reasons:

• python provides for much richer command line arguments

• it is also much easier to provide rich help

• managing errors is vastly improved with exception handling

• the unit testing framework allows good test coverage in continuous integration

• complex string handling is a common requirement and is much easier in python

• there is a clear versioning strategy and packages can be installed with pip, meaning that you can check which version of the script you are running and report bugs against a specific version

• the code is much easier to read and maintain

• because the packages can be pip installed they can be used in CI and inside multiple containers without having to copy the scripts around

Decision

We always prefer Python and keep bash scripts to a minimum

Consequences

Scripting is much easier to maintain and is more reliable.