pbt_web_request.py

# /localhost/query?terms=["a", "b", "c"]&limit=10&offset=20&sort="name"&sort_order="asc"
def query_request(params):
  limit = params.get("limit", None)
  offset = params.get("offset", 0)
  sort_order = params.get("sort_order", "asc")
  sort = params.get("sort", None)
  terms = params.get("terms", [])
  
  # do validation of things like empty terms,
  # nonsense sort order ... usually inline.
  # Can fail and should result in http errors
  validate(terms, sort, sort_order, limit, offset)
  
  # can fail in a number of ways depending on 
  # the request and also fail with http errors
  return do_query(terms, sort, sort_order, limit, offset)


assert(query_request(), "error message"))
assert(query_request({"terms": "blah"}, "result1"))
assert(query_request({"terms": ["blah1", "blah2"]}, "result2"))
assert(query_request({"terms": "blah", "limit": 4}, "result3"))
assert(query_request({"terms": ["blah1", "blah2"], "limit": 4}, "result4"))
# and so on forever