Usage

Brief introduction for xfiles -extension usage:

1. Create Fabric configuration file fabfile.py, for example with following contents:

   from fabric.api import env, run
   from fabric.contrib import xfiles
   
   def test():
     for elem in xfiles.query('~/document.xml', '/root/item[id=test*]'):
       # List all the elements having the attribute 'id'·
       # and it with value 'test', or something that starts with it
       print elem.text
   

   In this example, it is expected you have XML -document in your home directory (on remotehost -server), for example:

   <root>
     <item id="foo">value1</item>
     <item id="testing">value2</item>
     <item id="test">value3</item>
   </root>
   

2. To see the outcome, run the command:

   fab --username hostaccount -H remotehost test
   

   Unless you have SSH private key provided for the remotehost, it'll prompt for the password. After successful login, the XML file is read and text from all /root/item -elements is listed.

   Tip

   If the host parameter is not provided, or it is localhost, no SSH connection is needed/created and the file path is expected to be found from local filesystem. For example, following query reads the XML from· same directory where the fabfile.py is:

   for elem in xfiles.query('test.xml', '/root/sub'):
     print elem
   

See more examples and detailed information from official documentation: http://packages.python.org/fabric-contrib.xfiles