Python for Google App Engine

Massimiliano Pippi

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781784398194
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Application Development
• Index: Computer Science

Python for Google App Engine

---

Table of Contents

Python for Google App Engine

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started

The cloud computing stack – SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS

Google Cloud Platform

Hosting + Compute

Storage

BigQuery

Services

What Google App Engine does

The runtime environment

The services

Making our first Python application

Download and installation

Installing on Windows

Installing on Mac OS X

Installing on Linux

App Engine Launcher

Creating the application

The app.yaml configuration file

The main.py application script

Running the development server

Uploading the application to App Engine

Google Developer Console

Development Console

Summary

2. A More Complex Application

Experimenting on the Notes application

Authenticating users

HTML templates with Jinja2

Handling forms

Persisting data in Datastore

Defining the models

Basic querying

Transactions

Using static files

Summary

3. Storing and Processing Users' Data

Uploading files to Google Cloud Storage

Installing Cloud Storage Client Library

Adding a form to upload images

Serving files from Cloud Storage

Serving files through Google's Content Delivery Network

Serving images

Serving other types of files

Transforming images with the Images service

Processing long jobs with the task queue

Scheduling tasks with Cron

Sending notification e-mails

Receiving users' data as e-mail messages

Summary

4. Improving Application Performance

Advanced use of Datastore

More on properties – arrange composite data with StructuredProperty

More on queries – save space with projections and optimize iterations with mapping

Projection queries

Mapping

NDB asynchronous operations

Caching

Backup and restore functionalities

Indexing

Using Memcache

Breaking our application into modules

Summary

5. Storing Data in Google Cloud SQL

Creating a Cloud SQL instance

Configuring access

Setting the root password

Connecting to the instance with the MySQL console

Creating the notes database

Creating a dedicated user

Creating tables

Connecting to the instance from our application

Loading and saving data

Using the local MySQL installation for development

Summary

6. Using Channels to Implement a Real-time Application

Understanding how the Channel API works

Making our application real time

Implementing the server

The JavaScript code for clients

Tracking connections and disconnections

Summary

7. Building an Application with Django

Setting up the local environment

Configuring a virtual environment

Installing dependencies

Rewriting our application using Django 1.7

Using Google Cloud SQL as a database backend

Creating a reusable application in Django

Views and templates

Authenticating users with Django

Using the ORM and migrations system

Processing forms with the Forms API

Uploading files to Google Cloud Storage

Summary

8. Exposing a REST API with Google Cloud Endpoints

Reasons to use a REST API

Designing and building the API

Resources, URLs, HTTP verbs, and response code

Defining resource representations

Implementing API endpoints

Testing the API with API Explorer

Protecting an endpoint with OAuth2

Summary

Index

Python for Google App Engine

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2015

Production reference: 1210115

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78439-819-4

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Massimiliano Pippi

Reviewers

Dom Derrien

Samuel Goebert

Marcos Placona

Commissioning Editor

Taron Pereira

Acquisition Editor

Richard Brookes-Bland

Content Development Editor

Vaibhav Pawar

Technical Editor

Tanmayee Patil

Copy Editors

Deepa Nambiar

Vikrant Phadke

Stuti Srivastava

Project Coordinator

Kranti Berde

Proofreaders

Simran Bhogal

Maria Gould

Ameesha Green

Paul Hindle

Indexer

Priya Sane

Production Coordinator

Nitesh Thakur

Cover Work

Nitesh Thakur

About the Author

Massimiliano Pippi has been a software developer for over 10 years, more than half of which he spent working with scientific visualization and backend software for a private company, using C++ and Qt technologies. He started using Python in 2008 and currently works at Evonove, a small company where he has been leading a number of Python software projects, most of which are based on the Django web framework. He is also an open source advocate and active contributor, documentation fanatic, and speaker at conferences. He writes about Python and other development-related topics at http://dev.pippi.im.

About the Reviewers

Dom Derrien is a full-stack web developer who has been defining application environments with a focus on high availability and scalability. He's been in the development field for more than 15 years and has worked for big and small companies and also as an entrepreneur.

He's currently working for the game company Ubisoft Inc., where he defines the next generation services platform for its successful AAA games. To extend the gamer experience on the Web and on mobiles, he provides technical means that are transparent, efficient, and highly flexible.

On receiving the invitation to review this book, after a comparable work for the books Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development, Packt Publishing, he was pleased to share his knowledge about Google App Engine again.

I want to thank my wife, Sophie, and our sons, Erwan and Goulven, with whom I enjoy a peaceful life in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Samuel Goebert is a computer science PhD student at Plymouth University, UK. Samuel has over 12 years of experience in software development and associated technologies. For further details about him, check out his LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/samuelgoebert.

Marcos Placona grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and started tinkering with web development when 14.400 kbs modems were the coolest thing.

He then eagerly pursued a computer science degree and soon after an opportunity arose on the other side of the Atlantic. In his 20s, he decided to move to England where he worked as a software engineer at a software house. He also started blogging on www.placona.co.uk.

Marcos has published and printed articles in several w...