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On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 05:55:36PM +0300, mhorban wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> During development process in nova I faced with an issue related with config
> options. Now we have lists of config options and registering options mixed
> with source code in regular files.
> From one side it can be convenient: to have module-encapsulated config
> options. But problems appear when we need to use some config option in
> different modules/packages.
> 
> If some option is registered in module X and module X imports module Y for
> some reasons...
> and in one day we need to import this option in module Y we will get
> exception
> NoSuchOptError on import_opt in module Y.
> Because of circular dependency.
> To resolve it we can move registering of this option in Y module(in the
> inappropriate place) or use other tricks.
> 
> I offer to create file options.py in each package and move all package's
> config options and registration code there.
> Such approach allows us to import any option in any place of nova without
> problems.
> 
> Implementations of this refactoring can be done piece by piece where piece
> is
> one package.
> 
> What is your opinion about this idea?

I tend to think that focusing on problems with dependancy ordering when
modules import each others config options is merely attacking a symptom
of the real root cause problem.

The way we use config options is really entirely wrong. We have gone
to the trouble of creating (or trying to create) structured code with
isolated functional areas, files and object classes, and then we throw
in these config options which are essentially global variables which are
allowed to be accessed by any code anywhere. This destroys the isolation
of the various classes we've created, and means their behaviour often
based on side effects of config options from unrelated pieces of code.
It is total madness in terms of good design practices to have such use
of global variables.

So IMHO, if we want to fix the real big problem with config options, we
need to be looking to solution where we stop using config options as
global variables. We should change our various classes so that the
neccessary configurable options as passed into object constructors
and/or methods as parameters.

As an example in the libvirt driver.

I would set it up so that /only/ the LibvirtDriver class in driver.py
was allowed to access the CONF config options. In its constructor it
would load all the various config options it needs, and either set
class attributes for them, or pass them into other methods it calls.
So in the driver.py, instead of calling CONF.libvirt.libvirt_migration_uri
everywhere in the code,  in the constructor we'd save that config param
value to an attribute 'self.mig_uri = CONF.libvirt.libvirt_migration_uri'
and then where needed, we'd just call "self.mig_uri".

Now in the various other libvirt files, imagebackend.py, volume.py
vif.py, etc. None of those files would /ever/ access CONF.*. Any time
they needed a config parameter, it would be passed into their constructor
or method, by the LibvirtDriver or whatever invoked them.

Getting rid of the global CONF object usage in all these files trivially
now solves the circular dependancy import problem, as well as improving
the overall structure and isolation of our code, freeing all these methods
from unexpected side-effects from global variables.

Regards,
Daniel
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