--- java/sandbox/data-cat/src/main/python/hpsdatacat/util.py	                        (rev 0)
+++ java/sandbox/data-cat/src/main/python/hpsdatacat/util.py	2014-06-02 20:04:00 UTC (rev 648)
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@

+import getpass, socket, subprocess
+
+# location of data catalog script at SLAC
+__datacat_script = '~srs/datacat/prod/datacat-hps'
+
+# commands that have script wrappers for them
+__valid_commands = ( 'rm', 'registerDataset', 'addLocation', 'addMetaData', 'find' )
+
+# default site for data catalog search
+__default_site = 'SLAC'
+
+# default base path for datacatalog search
+__default_search_path = '/HPS'
+
+"""
+Get the default site.
+"""
+def get_default_site():
+    return __default_site
+
+"""
+Get the default search path.
+"""
+def get_default_search_path():
+    return __default_search_path
+                     
+"""
+Simple utility to return the full script command.
+This function will check if the command is valid.
+"""
+def get_datacat_command(command):
+    if command not in __valid_commands:
+        raise Exception("Unknown command: " % command)
+    return '%s %s' % (__datacat_script, command)
+    
+
+"""
+Get an SSH connection_string string for the SLAC or JLAB sites.
+This function will return null if not running at those sites,
+in which case the caller needs to provide their own (usually
+through a command line argument to one of the scripts).
+"""
+def get_ssh_connection_string():
+
+    # setup default connection_string
+    connection_string = None
+    domainname = socket.getfqdn()    
+
+    if 'slac' in domainname:
+        username = getpass.getuser()
+    elif 'jlab' in domainname:
+        username = 'hpsdatacat'
+    else:
+        username = None
+        
+    if username != None:         
+        connection_string = [log in to unmask] % username
+    
+    return connection_string
+
+"""
+Run a process in a shell and return the output lines, errors, and return value (in that order). 
+"""
+def run_process(cmd, printToScreen=True):
+    
+    process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
+    errors = []
+    lines = []
+    for line in process.stdout.readlines():
+        if printToScreen == True:
+            print line,            
+        if 'Exception' in line:
+            errors.append(line)
+        lines.append(line)
+        
+    retval = process.wait()
+    
+    return lines, errors, retval
+
+"""
+Escape characters for the SSH command.
+These include double quotes, spaces, and ampersands.
+"""
+def escape_characters(raw_string):
+    return raw_string.replace('"', '\\"').replace(' ', '\\ ').replace('&', '\\&')
+    

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