User account code with GET and POST

Question

I'm new to Python and GAE, but years of procedural programming. I have this code, but I know that there must be some better solution to avoid retyping code.

The first and last section of code are identical in both GET and POST methods, so I suppose there must be another way to share the identical code.

# This class manage the user account
class MyAccount(webapp2.RequestHandler):
 def get(self):
 """ Shows actual user account """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 # Get the actual user data
 data = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if data:
 templateValues['data'] = data
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('myAccount.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account"
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 # Render the page
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))
 def post(self):
 """ Saves user updated data """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 # Get the actual user data
 person = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if person:
 person.username = self.request.get('username')
 person.password = self.request.get('password')
 if person.email: self.request.get('email')
 person.name = self.request.get('name')
 person.lastname = self.request.get('lastname')
 person.idnumber = self.request.get('idnumber')
 templateValues['data'] = person
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('myAccount.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 # Render the page
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))

Answer 1

This line looks suspicious:

 if person.email: self.request.get('email')

I assume it should be:

 person.email = self.request.get('email')

Your code seem to be using excessive indentation. The python standard is four space per level.

You are using templateValues but don't seem to define it anywhere.

To refactor this, I'd start by removing the section of that that's different between the two methods into their own function:

# This class manage the user account
class MyAccount(webapp2.RequestHandler):
 def show_user(self, user):
 # Get the actual user data
 data = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if data:
 templateValues['data'] = data
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('myAccount.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 return template, templateValues
 def get(self):
 """ Shows actual user account """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 template, templateValues = self.show_user(user)
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account"
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 # Render the page
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))
 def update_user(self, user):
 # Get the actual user data
 person = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if person:
 person.username = self.request.get('username')
 person.password = self.request.get('password')
 person.email = self.request.get('email')
 person.name = self.request.get('name')
 person.lastname = self.request.get('lastname')
 person.idnumber = self.request.get('idnumber')
 templateValues['data'] = person
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('myAccount.htm')
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 return template, templateValues
 def post(self):
 """ Saves user updated data """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 template, templateValues = self.update_user(user)
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account."
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 # Render the page
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))

The only thing different between post and get is the function they call. We'll just pass the function as a parameter to a new function.

 def request(self, handler):
 """ Shows actual user account """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 template, templateValues = handler(user)
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account"
 template = jinja_environment.get_template('customMessage.htm')
 # Render the page
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))
 def get(self):
 return self.request(self.show_user)
 def post(self):
 return self.request(self.update_user)

The current code repeats calls to get_template a lot. So we'll refactor it so that it only happens once. We'll just store the name of the template in a variable and load it just before we render it.

def show_user(self, user):
 # Get the actual user data
 data = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if data:
 templateValues['data'] = data
 template = 'myAccount.htm'
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = 'customMessage.htm'
 return template, templateValues
def request(self, handler):
 """ Shows actual user account """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 template, templateValues = handler(user)
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account"
 template = 'customMessage.htm'
 # Render the page
 template = jinja_environment.get_template(template)
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))

But we can clean up our actual work functions a little more:

def show_user(self, user):
 # Get the actual user data
 data = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if data:
 return 'myAccount.htm', {
 'data' : data
 }
 else:
 return 'custom_msg.htm', {
 'custom_msg' : "The logged user is not available."
 }

• Eagle: Yeah, thanks. I love python everyday more and more. It's flexibility has no limits!! Great trick the function as parameter to a function
• Eagle: By the way, I pasted the code in my text editor, which made this strange indentation (double tab, instead tab), but is 4 spaces normally. And you are right in the other 2 supositions.

Answer 2

A little more clean up (sorry, I can't code on the answer link):

Get inside request the common part for show_user and update_user (which only differs on the name of the var, data or person). This is the final code. Thank you very much.

# This class manage the user account
class MyAccount(webapp2.RequestHandler):
 def show_user(self, person):
 templateValues = {}
 templateValues['data'] = person
 template = 'myAccount.htm'
 return template, templateValues
 def update_user(self, person):
 person.username = self.request.get('username')
 person.password = self.request.get('password')
 person.email = self.request.get('email')
 person.name = self.request.get('name')
 person.lastname = self.request.get('lastname')
 person.idnumber = self.request.get('idnumber')
 templateValues = {}
 templateValues['data'] = person
 template = 'myAccount.htm'
 return template, templateValues
 def requested(self, handler):
 """ Shows actual user account """
 # Get actual user
 user = users.get_current_user()
 if user:
 # Get the actual user data
 person = Person.gql("WHERE username = :nick",
 nick=user.nickname()).get()
 # Test if we found the user
 if person:
 template, templateValues = handler(person)
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "The logged user is not available."
 template = 'customMessage.htm'
 else:
 templateValues['custom_msg'] = "You are not logged in. Please, login to access to your account"
 template = 'customMessage.htm'
 # Render the page
 template = jinja_environment.get_template(template)
 self.response.out.write(template.render(templateValues))
 def get(self):
 return self.requested(self.show_user)
 def post(self):
 return self.requested(self.update_user)