Description of the project

The ALX B&B sums up the implementation of 5 months of studies at the ALX - the fullstack software engineering program. The goal of the project is to deploy a replica of the Airbnb Website using my server. The final version of this project will have:

• A command interpreter to manipulate data without a visual interface, like a shell (for development and debugging)
• A website (front-end) with static and dynamic functionalities
• A comprehensive database to manage the backend functionalities
• An API that provides a communication interface between the front and backend of the system.

General concepts in review

As you navigate this code base, it is great to note the following concepts, while completing this project.

• How to create a Python package
• How to create a command interpreter in Python using the cmd module
• What is Unit testing and how to implement it in a large project
• How to serialize and deserialize a Class
• How to write and read a JSON file
• How to manage datetime
• What is an UUID
• What is *args and how to use it
• What is **kwargs and how to use it
• How to handle named arguments in a function

Files and Directories

• models directory will contain all classes used for the entire project. A class, called “model” in a OOP project is the representation of an object/instance.
• tests directory will contain all unit tests.
• console.py file is the entry point of our command interpreter.
• models/base_model.py file is the base class of all our models. It contains common elements: attributes: id, created_at and updated_at methods: save() and to_json()
• models/engine directory will contain all storage classes (using the same prototype). For the moment I will have only one: file_storage.py.

The project's implementation will happen in the following phases:

Phase one

The first phase is to manipulate a powerful storage system to give an abstraction between objects and how they are stored and persisted. To achieve this, I will:

• put in place a parent class (called BaseModel) to take care of the initialization, serialization and deserialization of my future instances
• create a simple flow of serialization/deserialization: Instance <-> Dictionary <-> JSON string <-> file
• create all classes used for AirBnB (User, State, City, Place…) that inherit from BaseModel
• create the first abstracted storage engine of the project: File storage.
• create all unittests to validate all our classes and storage engine
• Create a data model Manage (create, update, destroy, etc) objects via a console/command interpreter
• Store and persist objects to files (JSON files).

General Execution

Your shell should work like this in interactive mode:

$ ./console.py
(hbnb) help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
(hbnb) 
(hbnb) quit
$
But also in non-interactive mode: (like the Shell project in C)

$ echo "help" | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
$
$ cat test_help
help
$
$ cat test_help | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb)
$

Authors

• Elijah Obara Samson
• John Musyomi