📄️ Squirrels Project File
The Squirrels project file ("squirrels.yml") includes configurations for the project. It contains the following sections:
📄️ Squirrels Project Settings
|Setting Key|Default|Description|
📄️ Environment Configuration File
The environment configuration file (environcfg.yml) contains secret values that are NOT part of the codebase for the squirrels project. It may contain any of the following sections:
📄️ Database Connections
All database connections for dbview models are specified using SQLAlchemy URLs. They can be configured either in the connections section of [squirrels.yml] or in the pyconfigs/connections.py file. If both are used, then connection names in the pyconfigs/connections.py file takes precedence.
📄️ Widget Parameters
The pool of all widget parameters for all datasets can be defined in Python in the main function of pyconfigs/parameters.py or in YAML in the "parameters" section of [squirrels.yml]. This "pool of parameters" is created the moment the API server is started with the [sqrl run] command, which includes reading lookup tables to create parameters from a data source. However, each dataset may only use a subset of the parameters in the pool (configured in the "datasets" section of [squirrels.yml]), so each dataset request, only that subset will be available to work with (for instance, in the [context.py] file or models).
📄️ Context File
The context file (pyconfigs/context.py) is where you can process runtime inputs, such as (but not limited to) parameter selections, into meaningful variables that can be used in the data models. The file contains a single main function with the arguments ctx and sqrl.
📄️ SQL Models
The "data model" can simply be thought of as a table or view in a database, derived from pre-existing tables or views. All models are defined somewhere in the models/ folder, and all SQL model files use the .sql extension. The part of the file name before the extension becomes the name of the model. In Squirrels, we split this into two categories: dbview models and federate models.
📄️ Python Models
Similar to [SQL models], all Python model files must be in the models/dbviews/ or models/federates/ folder, and use the .py extension. There is actually no difference in functionality between Python models in either folder. The folder you choose for each Python model is simply personal preference based on its purpose.
📄️ Authentication
Squirrels lets you integrate with your own user authentication system in Python with a pyconfigs/auth.py file. To create a sample file, simply run:
📄️ Modify Dates with dateutils
The squirrels library has a submodule called dateutils that can be used to transform date variables in Python with ease. To import the dateutils module (preferably in [context.py]), simply do: