Creating an Elementary Oscilloscope in PSLab’s Remote Framework

The last couple of blog posts explained how we could put together the versatility of ember components, the visual appeal of jqplot, the flexibility of Python Flask, and the simplicity of Python itself in order to make simple scripts for PSLab that would could be run on a server by a remote client anywhere on the web. We have also seen how callbacks could be assigned to widgets created in these scripts in order to make object oriented applications. In this blog post, we shall see how to assign a capture method to a button, and update a plot with the received data. It will also demonstrate how to use ember-lodash to perform array manipulations.

Specifying the return data type in the callback success routine

For a more instructive write-up on assigning callbacks, please refer to these posts .

Whenever the callback assigned to a button is a function that returns an array of elements, and the target for the resultant data is a plot, the stacking order of the returned array must be specified in order to change its shape to suit the plotting library. The default return data from a capture routine (oscilloscope) is made up of separate arrays for X coordinate and Y coordinate values. Since JQplot requires [X,Y] pairs , we must specify a stacking order of ‘xy’ so that the application knows that it must convert them to pairs (using lodash/zip)  before passing the result to the plot widget. Similarly, different stacking orders for capture2, and capture4 must also be defined.

Creating an action that performs necessary array manipulations and plots the received data

It can be seen from the excerpt below, that if the onSuccess target for a callback is specified to be a plot in the actionDefinition object, then the stacking order is checked, and the returned data is modified accordingly

Relevant excerpt from controllers/user-home.js/runButtonAction

if (actionDefinition.success.type === 'update-plot') {
  if (actionDefinition.success.stacking === 'xy') {
    $.jqplot(actionDefinition.success.target, [zip(...resultValue)]).replot();
  } else if (actionDefinition.success.stacking === 'xyy') {
    $.jqplot(actionDefinition.success.target, [zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[1]]), zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[2]])]).replot();
  } else if (actionDefinition.success.stacking === 'xyyyy') {
    $.jqplot(actionDefinition.success.target, [zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[1]]), zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[2]]), zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[3]]), zip(...[resultValue[0], resultValue[4]])]).replot();
  } else {
    $.jqplot(actionDefinition.success.target, resultValue).replot();
  }
}

 

With the above framework in place, we can add a plot with the line plt = plot(x, np.sin(x)) , and associate a button with a capture routine that will update its contents with a single line of code: button(‘capture1’,”capture1(‘CH1’,100,10)”,”update-plot”,target=plt)

Final Result

The following script created on the pslab-remote platform makes three buttons and plots, and sets the buttons to invoke capture1, capture2, and capture4 respectively when clicked.

import numpy as np
x=np.linspace(0,2*np.pi,30)
plt = plot(x, np.sin(x))
button('capture 1',"capture1('CH1',100,10)","update-plot",target=plt)

plt2 = plot(x, np.sin(x))
button('capture 2',"capture2(50,10)","update-plot",target=plt2,stacking='xyy')

plt3 = plot(x, np.sin(x))
button('capture 4',"capture4(50,10)","update-plot",target=plt3,stacking='xyyyy')

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources

 

Continue ReadingCreating an Elementary Oscilloscope in PSLab’s Remote Framework

Copying Event in Open Event API Server

The Event Copy feature of Open Event API Server provides the ability to create a xerox copy of event copies with just one API call. This feature creates the complete copy of event by copying the related objects as well like tracks, sponsors, micro-locations, etc. This API is based on the simple method where an object is first removed is from current DB session and then applied make_transient. Next step is to remove the unique identifying columns like “id”, “identifier” and generating the new identifier and saving the new record. The process seems simple but becomes a little complex when you have to generate copies of media files associated and copies of related multiple objects ensuring no orders, attendees, access_codes relations are copied.

Initial Step

The first thing to copy the event is first to get the event object and all related objects first

if view_kwargs.get('identifier').isdigit():
   identifier = 'id'

event = safe_query(db, Event, identifier, view_kwargs['identifier'], 'event_'+identifier)

Next thing is to get all related objects to this event.

Creating the new event

After removing the current event object from “db.session”, It is required to remove “id” attribute and regenerate “identifier” of the event.

db.session.expunge(event)  # expunge the object from session
make_transient(event)
delattr(event, 'id')
event.identifier = get_new_event_identifier()
db.session.add(event)
db.session.commit()

Updating related object with new event

The new event created has new “id” and “identifier”. This new “id” is added into foreign keys columns of the related object thus providing a relationship with the new event created.

for ticket in tickets:
   ticket_id = ticket.id
   db.session.expunge(ticket)  # expunge the object from session
   make_transient(ticket)
   ticket.event_id = event.id
   delattr(ticket, 'id')
   db.session.add(ticket)
   db.session.commit()

Finishing up

The last step of Updating related objects is repeated for all related objects to create the copy. Thus a new event is created with all related objects copied with the single endpoint.

References

How to clone a sqlalchemy object
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28871406/how-to-clone-a-sqlalchemy-db-object-with-new-primary-key

Continue ReadingCopying Event in Open Event API Server

Reset password in Open Event API Server

The addition of reset password API in the Open Event API Server enables the user to send a forgot password request to the server so that user can reset the password. Reset Password API is a two step process. The first endpoint allows you to request a token to reset the password and this token is sent to the user via email. The second process is making a PATCH request with the token and new password to set the new password on user’s account.

Creating a Reset token

This endpoint is not JSON spec based API. A reset token is simply a hash of random bits which is stored in a specific column of user’s table.

hash_ = random.getrandbits(128)
self.reset_password = str(hash_)

Once the user completed the resetting of the password using the specific token, the old token is flushed and the new token is generated. These tokens are all one time use only.

Requesting a Token

A token can be requested on a specific endpoint  POST /v1/auth/reset-password
The token with the direct link will be sent to registered email.

link = make_frontend_url('/reset-password', {'token': user.reset_password})
send_email_with_action(user, PASSWORD_RESET,     
                       app_name=get_settings()['app_name'], link=link)

Flow with frontend

The flow is broken into 2 steps with front end is serving to the backend. The user when click on forget password will be redirected to reset password page in the front end which will call the API endpoint in the backend with an email to send the token. The email received will contain the link for the front end URL which when clicked will redirect the user to the front end page of providing the new password. The new password entered with the token will be sent to API server by the front end and reset password will complete.

Updating Password

Once clicked on the link in the email, the user will be asked to provide the new password. This password will be sent to the endpoint PATCH /v1/auth/reset-password. The body will receive the token and the new password to update. The user will be identified using the token and password is updated for the respective user.

try:
   user = User.query.filter_by(reset_password=token).one()
except NoResultFound:
   return abort(
       make_response(jsonify(error="User not found"), 404)
   )
else:
   user.password = password
   save_to_db(user)

References

  1. Understand Self-service reset password
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-service_password_reset
  2. Python – getrandbits()
    https://docs.python.org/2/library/random.html
Continue ReadingReset password in Open Event API Server

Post Payment Charging in Open Event API Server

Order flow in Open Event API Server follows very simple process. On successfully creating a order through API server the user receives the payment-url. API server out of the box provides support for two payment gateways, stripe and paypal.
The process followed is very simple, on creating the order you will receive the payment-url. The frontend will complete the payment through that url and on completion it will hit the specific endpoint which will confirm the payment and update the order status.

Getting the payment-url

Payment Url will be sent on successfully creating the order. There are three type of payment-modes which can be provided to Order API on creating order. The three payment modes are “free”, “stripe” and “paypal”. To get the payment-url just send the payment mode as stripe or paypal.

POST Payment

After payment processing through frontend, the charges endpoint will be called so that payment verification can be done on the server end.

POST /v1/orders/<identifier>/charge

This endpoint receives the stripe token if the payment mode is stripe else no token is required to process payment for paypal.
The response will have the order details on successful verification.

Implementation

The implementation of charging is based on the custom data layer in Orga Server. The custom layer overrides the Base data layer and provide the custom implementation to “create_object” method thus, not using Alchemy layer.

def create_object(self, data, view_kwargs):
   order = Order.query.filter_by(id=view_kwargs['id']).first()
   if order.payment_mode == 'stripe':
       if data.get('stripe') is None:
           raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': ''}, "stripe token is missing")
       success, response = TicketingManager.charge_stripe_order_payment(order, data['stripe'])
       if not success:
           raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': 'stripe_token_id'}, response)

   elif order.payment_mode == 'paypal':
       success, response = TicketingManager.charge_paypal_order_payment(order)
       if not success:
           raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': ''}, response)
   return order

With the resource class as

class ChargeList(ResourceList):
   methods = ['POST', ]
   schema = ChargeSchema

   data_layer = {
       'class': ChargesLayer,
       'session': db.session
   }

Resources

  1. Paypal Payments API
    https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/payments/
  2. Flask-json-api custom layer docs
    http://flask-rest-jsonapi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/data_layer.html#custom-data-layer
  3. Stripe Payments API
    https://stripe.com/docs/charges
Continue ReadingPost Payment Charging in Open Event API Server

Implementing SUSI Linux App as a Finite State Machine

SUSI Linux app provides access to SUSI on Linux distributions on desktop as well as hardware devices like Raspberry Pi. It is a headless client that can be used to interact to SUSI via voice only. As more and more features like multiple hotword detection support and wake button support was added to SUSI Linux, the code became complex to understand and manage. A system was needed to model the app after. Finite State Machine is a perfect approach for such system.

The Wikipedia definition of State Machine is

It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time. The FSM can change from one state to another in response to some external inputs; the change from one state to another is called a transition.”

This means that if you can model your app into a finite number of states, you may consider using the State Machine implementation.

State Machine implementation has following advantages:

  • Better control over the working of the app.
  • Improved Error handling by making an Error State to handle errors.
  • States work independently which helps to modularize code in a better form.

To begin with, we declare an abstract State class. This class declares all the common properties of a state and transition method.

from abc import ABC, abstractclassmethod
import logging

class State(ABC):
   def __init__(self, components):
       self.components = components
       self.allowedStateTransitions = {}

   @abstractclassmethod
   def on_enter(self, payload=None):
       pass

   @abstractclassmethod
   def on_exit(self):
       pass

   def transition(self, state, payload=None):
       if not self.__can_transition(state):
           logging.warning("Invalid transition to State{0}".format(state))
           return

       self.on_exit()
       state.on_enter(payload)

   def __can_transition(self, state):
       return state in self.allowedStateTransitions.values()

We declared the on_enter() and on_exit() abstract method. These methods are executed on the entering and exiting a state respectively. The task designated for the state can be performed in the on_enter() method and it can free up resources or stop listening to callbacks in the on_exit() method. The transition method is to transition between one state to another. In a state machine, a state can transition to one of the allowed states only. Thus, we check if the transition is allowed or not before continuing it. The on_enter() and transition() methods additionally accepts a payload argument. This can be used to transfer some data to the state from the previous state.

We also added the components property to the State. Components store the shared components that can be used across all the State and are needed to be initialized only once. We create a component class declaring all the components that are needed to be used by states.

class Components:

   def __init__(self):
       recognizer = Recognizer()
       recognizer.dynamic_energy_threshold = False
       recognizer.energy_threshold = 1000
       self.recognizer = recognizer
       self.microphone = Microphone()
       self.susi = susi
       self.config = json_config.connect('config.json')

       if self.config['hotword_engine'] == 'Snowboy':
           from main.hotword_engine import SnowboyDetector
           self.hotword_detector = SnowboyDetector()
       else:
           from main.hotword_engine import PocketSphinxDetector
           self.hotword_detector = PocketSphinxDetector()

       if self.config['wake_button'] == 'enabled':
           if self.config['device'] == 'RaspberryPi':
               from ..hardware_components import RaspberryPiWakeButton
               self.wake_button = RaspberryPiWakeButton()
           else:
               self.wake_button = None
       else:
           self.wake_button = None

Now, we list out all the states that we need to implement in our app. This includes:

  • Idle State: App is listening for Hotword or Wake Button.
  • Recognizing State: App actively records audio from Microphone and performs Speech Recognition.
  • Busy State: SUSI API is called for the response of the query and the reply is spoken.
  • Error State: Upon any error in the above state, control transfers to Error State. This state needs to handle the speak the correct error message and then move the machine to Idle State.

Each state can be implemented by inheriting the base State class and implementing the on_enter() and on_exit() methods to implement the correct behavior.

We also declare a SUSI State Machine class to store the information about current state and declare the valid transitions for all the states.

class SusiStateMachine:
   def __init__(self):
       super().__init__()
       components = Components()
       self.__idle_state = IdleState(components)
       self.__recognizing_state = RecognizingState(components)
       self.__busy_state = BusyState(components)
       self.__error_state = ErrorState(components)
       self.current_state = self.__idle_state

       self.__idle_state.allowedStateTransitions = \
           {'recognizing': self.__recognizing_state, 'error': self.__error_state}
       self.__recognizing_state.allowedStateTransitions = \
           {'busy': self.__busy_state, 'error': self.__error_state}
       self.__busy_state.allowedStateTransitions = \
           {'idle': self.__idle_state, 'error': self.__error_state}
       self.__error_state.allowedStateTransitions = \
           {'idle': self.__idle_state}

       self.current_state.on_enter(payload=None)

We also set Idle State as the current State of the System. In this way, State Machine approach is implemented in SUSI Linux.

Resources:

 

Continue ReadingImplementing SUSI Linux App as a Finite State Machine

Implementing a Custom Serializer for Yaydoc

At the crux of it, Yaydoc is comprised of a number of specialized bash scripts which perform various tasks such as generating documentation, publishing it to github pages, heroku, etc. These bash scripts also serve as the central communication portal for various technologies used in Yaydoc. The core generator is composed of several Python modules extending the sphinx documentation generator. The web Interface has been built using Node, Express, etc. Yaydoc also contains a Python package dedicated to reading configuration options from a Yaml file.

Till now the options were read and then converted to strings irrespective of the actual data type, based on some simple rules.

  • List was converted to a comma separated string.(Nested lists were not handled)
  • Boolean values were converted to true | false respectively.
  • None was converted to an empty string.

While these simple rules were enough at that time, It was certain that a better solution would be required as the project grew in size. It was also getting tough to maintain because a lot of hard-coding was required when we wanted to convert those strings to python objects. To handle these cases, I decided to create a custom serialization format which would be simple for our use cases and easily parseable from a bash script yet can handle all edge cases. The format is mostly similar to its earlier form apart from lists where it takes heavy inspiration from the python language itself.

With the new implementation, Lists would get converted to comma separated strings enclosed by square brackets. This allowed us to encode the type of the object in the string so that it can later be decoded. This handled the case of an empty list or a list with single element well. The implementation also handled nested lists.

Two methods were created namely serialize and deserialize which detected the type of the corresponding object using several heuristics and applied the proper serialization or deserialization rule.

def serialize(value):
    """
    Serializes a python object to a string.
    None is serialized to an empty string.
    bool values are converted to strings True False.
    list or tuples are recursively handled and are comma separated.
    """
    if value is None:
        return ''
    if isinstance(value, str):
        return value
    if isinstance(value, bool):
        return "true" if value else "false"
    if isinstance(value, (list, tuple)):
        return '[' + ','.join(serialize(_) for _ in value) + ']'
    return str(value)

To deserialize we also had to handle the case of nested lists. The following snippet does that properly.

def deserialize(value, numeric=True):
    """
    Deserializes a string to a python object.
    Strings True False are converted to bools.
    `numeric` controls whether strings should be converted to
    ints or floats if possible. List strings are handled recursively.
    """
    if value.lower() in ("true", "false"):
        return value.lower() == "true"
    if numeric and _is_numeric(value):
        return _to_numeric(value)
    if value.startswith('[') and value.endswith(']'):
        split = []
        element = ''
        level = 0
        for c in value:
            if c == '[':
                level += 1
                if level != 1:
                    element += c
            elif c == ']':
                if level != 1:
                    element += c
                level -= 1
            elif c == ',' and level == 1:
                split.append(element)
                element = ''
            else:
                element += c
        if split or element:
            split.append(element)
        return [deserialize(_, numeric) for _ in split]
    return value

With this new approach, we are able to handle much more cases as compared to the previous implementation and is much more robust. It does however still lacks lacks certain features such as serializing dictionaries. That may be be implemented in the future if need be.

Resources

Continue ReadingImplementing a Custom Serializer for Yaydoc

Using Order Endpoints in Open Event API Server

The main feature i.e., Ordering API is added into API server. These endpoints provide the ability to work with the ordering system. This API is not simple like other as it checks for the discount codes and various other things as well.
The process in layman terms is very simple, first, a user must be registered or added as an attendee into Server without any order_id associated and then the attendee details will be sent to API server as a relationship.

Things needed to take care:

  1. Validating the discount code and ensure it is not exhausted
  2. Calculating the total amount on the server side by applying coupon
  3. Do not calculate amount if the user is the event admin
  4. Do not use coupon if user is event admin
  5. Handling payment modes and generating payment links
  6. Ensure that default status is always pending, unless the user is event admin

Creating Order

    • Prerequisite
      Before initiating the order, attendee records needs to be created associated with the event. These records will not have any order_id associated with them initially. The Order API will add the relationships.
    • Required Body
      Order API requires you to send event relationship and attendee records to create order_tickets
    • Permissions
      Only organizers can provide custom amount and status. Others users will get their status as pending and amount will be recalculated in server. The response will reflect the calculated amount and updated status.
      Also to initiate any order, user must be logged in. Guest can not create any order
    • Payment Modes
      There are three payment modes, free, stripe and paypal. If payment_mode is not provided then API will consider it as “free”.
    • Discount Codes
      Discount code can be sent as a relationship to the API. The Server will validate the code and will act accordingly.

Validating Discount Codes

Discount codes are checked to ensure they are valid, first check ensures that the user is not co-organizer

# Apply discount only if the user is not event admin
if data.get('discount') and not has_access('is_coorganizer', event_id=data['event']):

Second, check ensures that the discount code is active

if not discount_code.is_active:
  raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': 'discount_code_id'}, "Inactive Discount Code")

The third, Check ensures its validity is not expired

if not (valid_from <= now <= valid_till):
  raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': 'discount_code_id'}, "Inactive Discount Code")

Fourth Check ensure that the quantity is not exhausted

if not TicketingManager.match_discount_quantity(discount_code, data['ticket_holders']):
  raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': 'discount_code_id'}, 'Discount Usage Exceeded')

Lastly, the fifth check ensures that event id matches with given discount associated event

if discount_code.event.id != data['event'] and discount_code.user_for == TICKET:
  raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': 'discount_code_id'}, "Invalid Discount Code")

Calculating Order Amount

The next important thing is to recalculate the order amount and it will calculated only if user is not the event admin

if not has_access('is_coorganizer', **view_kwargs):
  TicketingManager.calculate_update_amount(order)

API Response

The API response apart from general fields will provide you the payment-url depending upon the payment mode you selected.

  • Stripe : will give payment-url as stripe
  • Paypal: will provide the payment completing url in payment-url

This all explains the flow and requirements to create an order. Order API consists of many more things related with TIcketing Manager which works to create the payment url and apply discount count as well as calculate the total order amount.

Resources

  1. Stripe Payments API Docs
    https://stripe.com/docs/api
  2. Paypal Payments API docs
    https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/
  3. Paypal Sandbox docs
    https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/lifecycle/ug_sandbox/

 

Continue ReadingUsing Order Endpoints in Open Event API Server

Enhancing the Functionality of User Submitted Scripts in the PSLab-remote framework

The remote-lab framework of the pocket science lab enables users to access their devices remotely via the internet. Its design involves an API server built with Python-Flask and a webapp that uses EmberJS. This post is the latest in a series of blog posts which have explored and elaborated various aspect of the remote-lab such as designing the API server and testing with Postman, remote execution of function strings, automatic deployment on various domains etc. It also supports creating and submitting python scripts which will be run on the remote server, and the console output relayed to the webapp.

In this post, we shall take a look at how we can extend the functionality by providing support for object oriented code in user submitted scripts.

Let’s take an example of a Python script where the user wishes to create a button which when clicked will read a voltage via the API server, and display the value to the remote user. Clearly, an interpreter that only provides the console output is not enough for this task. We need the interpreter to generate an app structure that also includes callbacks for widgets such as buttons, and JSON objects are an obvious choice for relaying such a structure to the webapp.

In a nutshell, we had earlier created an API method that could execute a python script and return a string output, and now we will modify this method to return a JSON encoded structure which will be parsed by the webapp in order to display an output.

Let’s elaborate this with an example : Example.py

print ('testing')
print ('testing some changes..... ')
print_('highlighted print statement')

 

JSON returned by the API [localhost:8000/runScriptById] , for the above script:

{"Date": "Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:39:12 GMT", "Filename": "example.py", "Id": 4,
 "result": [
  {"name": "print", "type": "span", "value": "('testing',)"},
  {"name": "print", "type": "span", "value": "('testing some changes..... ',)"},
  {"class": "row well", "name": "print", "type": "span", "value": "highlighted print statement"}
  ],
"status": true}
Screenshot of the EmberJS webapp showing the output rendered with the above JSON

Adding Support for Widgets

In the previous section, we laid the groundwork for a flexible platform. Instead of returning a string, the webapp accepts a JSON object and parses it. We shall now add support for a clickable button which can be associated with a valid PSLab function.

An elementary JS twiddle has been made by Niranjan Rajendran which will help newbies to understand how to render dynamic templates via JSON objects retrieved from APIs. The twiddle uses two API endpoints; one to retrieve the compiled JSON output, and another to act as a voltmeter method which returns a voltage value.

To understand how this works in pslab-remote, consider a one line script called button.py:

button('get voltage',"get_voltage('CH1')")

The objective is to create a button with the text ‘get voltage’ on it , and which when clicked will run the command ‘get_voltage(‘CH1’)’ on the API server, and display the result.

When this script is run on the API server, it returns a JSON object with the following structure:

{"Date": "Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:39:12 GMT", "Filename": "example.py", "Id": 4,
 "result": [  {"type":"button","name":"button-id0","label":"get_voltage","fetched_value":"","action":{"type":"POST","endpoint":"get_voltage('CH1')","success":{"datapoint":'result',"type":"display_number", "target":"button-id0-label"}}},
  {"name": "button-id0label", "type": "label", "value": ""},
  ],
"status": true}

The above JSON object is parsed by the webapp’s user-home template, and a corresponding button and label are generated. The following section of code from user-home.hbs renders the JSON object

{{#each codeResults as |element|}}
  {{#if (eq element.type 'label')}}
    <label  id="{{element.name}}" class="{{element.class}}">{{element.value}}</label>
  {{/if}}
  {{#if (eq element.type 'button')}}
    <button id="{{element.name}}" {{action 'runButtonAction' element.action}}>{{element.label}}</button>
  {{/if}}
{{/each}}    

An action was also associated with the the created button, and this is the “get_voltage(‘CH1’)” string which we had specified in our one line script.

For the concluding section, we shall see how this action is invoked when the button is clicked, and how the returned value is used to update the contents of the label that was generated as part of this button.

Action defined in controllers/user-home.js :

runButtonAction(actionDefinition) {
  if(actionDefinition.type === 'POST') {
    Ember.$.post('/evalFunctionString',{'function':actionDefinition.endpoint},this,"json")
      .then(response => {
        const resultValue = Ember.get(response, actionDefinition.success.datapoint);
        if (actionDefinition.success.type === 'display_number') {
           Ember.$('#' + actionDefinition.success.target).text(resultValue.toFixed(3));
        }
      });
  }
}

The action string is passed to the evalFunctionString endpoint of the API, and the contents are mapped to the display label.

Screencast of the above process
Resources:
Continue ReadingEnhancing the Functionality of User Submitted Scripts in the PSLab-remote framework

Adding Push Wake Button to SUSI on Raspberry PI

SUSI Linux for Raspberry Pi provides the ability to call SUSI with the help of a Hotword ‘Susi’. Calling via Hotword is a natural way of interaction but it is even handier to invoke SUSI listening mode with the help of a Push button. It enables to call SUSI in a noisy environment where detection of Hotword is not that accurate.

To enable Push Wake button is Susi, we need access to Hardware Pins. Devices like Raspberry PI provides GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) Pins for interacting with Hardware Devices.

In this tutorial, we are adding support for Push Wake Button in Raspberry PI, though similar procedure can be extended to add Wake Button to Orange Pi, Beaglebone Black, and other devices. For adding push wake button, we require:

We now need to do wiring to connect button to Raspberry Pi. The button can be connected to Raspberry Pi following the connection diagram. 

After this, we need to install the Raspberry Pi GPIO Python Library. Install it using:

$ pip3 install RPi.GPIO

Now, we may detect the press of the button in our code. We declare an abstract class for implementing Wake Button. In this way, we can later extend our code to include Wake Buttons for more platforms.

import os
from abc import ABC, abstractclassmethod
from queue import Queue
from threading import Thread

from utils.susi_config import config


class WakeButton(ABC, Thread):
   def __init__(self, detection_callback, callback_queue: Queue):
       super().__init__()
       self.detection_callback = detection_callback
       self.callback_queue = callback_queue
       self.is_active = False

   @abstractclassmethod
   def run(self):
       pass

   def on_detected(self):
       if self.is_active:
           self.callback_queue.put(self.detection_callback)
           os.system('play {0} &'.format(config['detection_bell_sound']))
           self.is_active = False

We defined WakeButton class as a Thread. This is done to ensure that listening to Wake Buttons is done in background thread and it does not disturb the main thread. The callback to be executed on main thread after button press is detected is added to callback queue. Main Thread listens on the callback queue and executes any pending functions from other threads.

We also play an Audio File additionally on detection of a button press to confirm the activation of detection to the user.

Now, we define Raspberry Pi Wake Button class. This class extends from abstract WakeButton declared above.

from queue import Queue

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
from .wake_button import WakeButton


class RaspberryPiWakeButton(WakeButton):
   def __init__(self, detection_callback, callback_queue: Queue):
       super().__init__(detection_callback, callback_queue)
       GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
       GPIO.setup(18, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_UP)

   def run(self):
       while True:
           input_state = GPIO.input(18)
           if not input_state:
               self.on_detected()
               self.is_active = False
               time.sleep(0.2)

This class defines the Wake Button for Raspberry Pi. We continuously poll for the input value of GPIO Pin number 18 on which button is connected. If value is negative, it indicated that button was pressed.

Now, we need to add an option if configuration script to give users a choice to enable or disable wake button. We first need to check, if device is Raspberry Pi, since feature is available on Raspberry PI only. To do this, we try to import RPi.GPIO module. If module loading fails, it indicates that device does not support Raspberry Pi GPIO modes. We set the configuration parameters according to it.

def setup_wake_button():
   try:
       import RPi.GPIO
       print("Device supports RPi.GPIO")
       choice = input("Do you wish to enable hardware wake button? (y/n)")
       if choice == 'y':
           config['WakeButton'] = 'enabled'
           config['Device'] = 'RaspberryPi'
       else:
           config['WakeButton'] = 'disabled'
   except ImportError:
       print("This device does not support RPi.GPIO")
       config['WakeButton'] = 'not available'

Now, we simply use the Raspberry Pi wake button detector in our code.

if config['wake_button'] == 'enabled':
   if config['device'] == 'RaspberryPi':
       from hardware_components import RaspberryPiWakeButton

       wake_button = RaspberryPiWakeButton(callback_queue=callback_queue, detection_callback=start_speech_recognition)
       wake_button.start()

Now, when you need to invoke SUSI Listening Mode, instead of saying ‘SUSI’ as Hotword, you may also press the push button. Ask your query after hearing a small bell and get instant reply from SUSI.

Resources:

Continue ReadingAdding Push Wake Button to SUSI on Raspberry PI

How User Event Roles relationship is handled in Open Event Server

Users and Events are the most important part of FOSSASIA‘s Open Event Server. Through the advent and upgradation of the project, the way of implementing user event roles has gone through a lot many changes. When the open event organizer server was first decoupled to serve as an API server, the user event roles like all other models was decided to be served as a separate API to provide a data layer above the database for making changes in the entries. Whenever a new role invite was accepted, a POST request was made to the User Events Roles table to insert the new entry. Whenever there was a change in the role of an user for a particular event, a PATCH request was made. Permissions were made such that a user could insert only his/her user id and not someone else’s entry.

def before_create_object(self, data, view_kwargs):
        """
        method to create object before post
        :param data:
        :param view_kwargs:
        :return:
        """
        if view_kwargs.get('event_id'):
            event = safe_query(self, Event, 'id', view_kwargs['event_id'], 'event_id')
            data['event_id'] = event.id

        elif view_kwargs.get('event_identifier'):
            event = safe_query(self, Event, 'identifier', view_kwargs['event_identifier'], 'event_identifier')
            data['event_id'] = event.id
        email = safe_query(self, User, 'id', data['user'], 'user_id').email
        invite = self.session.query(RoleInvite).filter_by(email=email).filter_by(role_id=data['role'])\
                .filter_by(event_id=data['event_id']).one_or_none()
        if not invite:
            raise ObjectNotFound({'parameter': 'invite'}, "Object: not found")

    def after_create_object(self, obj, data, view_kwargs):
        """
        method to create object after post
        :param data:
        :param view_kwargs:
        :return:
        """
        email = safe_query(self, User, 'id', data['user'], 'user_id').email
        invite = self.session.query(RoleInvite).filter_by(email=email).filter_by(role_id=data['role'])\
                .filter_by(event_id=data['event_id']).one_or_none()
        if invite:
            invite.status = "accepted"
            save_to_db(invite)
        else:
            raise ObjectNotFound({'parameter': 'invite'}, "Object: not found")


Initially what we did was when a POST request was sent to the User Event Roles API endpoint, we would first check whether a role invite from the organizer exists for that particular combination of user, event and role. If it existed, only then we would make an entry to the database. Else we would raise an “Object: not found” error. After the entry was made in the database, we would update the role_invites table to change the status for the role_invite.

Later it was decided that we need not make a separate API endpoint. Since API endpoints are all user accessible and may cause some problem with permissions, it was decided that the user event roles would be handled entirely through the model instead of a separate API. Also, the workflow wasn’t very clear for an user. So we decided on a workflow where the role_invites table is first updated with the particular status and after the update has been made, we make an entry to the user_event_roles table with the data that we get from the role_invites table.

When a role invite is accepted, sqlalchemy add() and commit() is used to insert a new entry into the table. When a role is changed for a particular user, we make a query, update the values and save it back into the table. So the entire process is handled in the data layer level rather than the API level.

The code implementation is as follows:

def before_update_object(self, role_invite, data, view_kwargs):
        """
        Method to edit object
        :param role_invite:
        :param data:
        :param view_kwargs:
        :return:
        """
        user = User.query.filter_by(email=role_invite.email).first()
        if user:
            if not has_access('is_user_itself', id=user.id):
                raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': ''}, "Only users can edit their own status")
        if not user and not has_access('is_organizer', event_id=role_invite.event_id):
            raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': ''}, "User not registered")
        if not has_access('is_organizer', event_id=role_invite.event_id) and (len(data.keys())>1 or 'status' not in data):
            raise UnprocessableEntity({'source': ''}, "You can only change your status")

    def after_update_object(self, role_invite, data, view_kwargs):
        user = User.query.filter_by(email=role_invite.email).first()
        if 'status' in data and data['status'] == 'accepted':
            role = Role.query.filter_by(name=role_invite.role_name).first()
            event = Event.query.filter_by(id=role_invite.event_id).first()
            uer = UsersEventsRoles.query.filter_by(user=user).filter_by(event=event).filter_by(role=role).first()
            if not uer:
                uer = UsersEventsRoles(user, event, role)
                save_to_db(uer, 'Role Invite accepted')


In the above code, there are two main functions –
before_update_object which gets executed before the entry in the role_invites table is updated, and after_update_object which gets executed after.

In the before_update_object, we verify that the user is accepting or rejecting his own role invite and not someone else’s role invite. Also, we ensure that the user is allowed to only update the status of the role invite and not any other sensitive data like the role_name or email. If the user tried to edit any other field except status, then an error is shown to him/her. However if the user has organizer access, then he/she can edit the other fields of the role_invites table as well. The has_access() helper permission function helps us ensure the permission checks.

In the after_update_object we make the entry to the user event roles table. In the after_update_object from the role_invite parameter we can get the exact values of the newly updated row in the table. We use the data of this role invite to find the user, event and role associated with this role. Then we create a UsersEventsRoles object with user, event and role as parameters for the constructor. Then we use save_to_db helper function to save the new entry to the database. The save_to_db function uses the session.add() and session.commit() functions of flask-sqlalchemy to add the new entry directly to the database.

Thus, we maintain the flow of the user event roles relationship. All the database entries and operation related to users-events-roles table remains encapsulated from the client user so that they can use the various API features without thinking about the complications of the implementations.

 

Reference:

Continue ReadingHow User Event Roles relationship is handled in Open Event Server