Folder Synchronizer

Goal

Implement a pythom program to perform folder synchronization

To implement folder synchronization, I selected 5 distinguished actions:

• Folder removal (Empty Folders);
• File removal;
• Folder creation (Empty Folders);
• File creation/copy;
• File update.

So with this actions in mind, I created a class to perform it. First I grouped these actions in two categories:

• Remove actions (remove_items method): because to perform these actions must iterate over replica folder
• Creation actions (create_or_update_items method): because to perform these actions must iterate over source folder

By the way, I started with remove actions because if we create items first, the remove task will iterate over more items.

A custom log class was created to handle both file and console log needs

Dependencies and Execution

Dependencies

On this task I didn't use external packages, so there is no external dependency. But I followed python good practices anyway and created Requirements.txt file

Execution

The decision of whether to create a virtual env for executing the script is up to the user. In my case, I've created a virtual env, but I haven't committed it.

To run the program, it requires the following arguments:

• sourceDir: Complete directory path of the source folder.
• replicaDir: Complete directory path of the replica folder.
• logFolder: Complete directory path of the log folder.

Example of execution:

python -m folder_synchronizer --sourceDir <sourceDir> --replicaDir <replicaDir> --logFolder <logFolder>

Project Structure

The project was organized following the typical structure of a python package project, that's the reason to include a setup.py file.

To compile the package, execute the following command:

python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel

this command generates a wheel and a tarball (.tar.gz) file of the version configured on the setup.py

Tests

As a tester myself, I couldn't develop a project/script without including any tests. Therefore, I've created some unit tests under the test folder.

I don't strongly believe in achieving 100% coverage in unit tests, as it can lead to unnecessary time consumption in test implementation. Instead, I believe in focusing on the most crucial tests that can ensure the script works as expected. With this approach in mind, I've developed the following tests:

• Scenario 1: Source folder does not exist, should thrown error
• Scenario 2: Replica folder does not exist, should be created
• Scenario 3: Exists a Folder in Replica that does not exists on Source folder, should be removed
• Scenario 4: Exists a File in Replica that does not exists on Source folder, should be removed
• Scenario 5: A folder in Source is created, should be created as well in replica
• Scenario 6: A file in Source is created, should be created as well in replica
• Scenario 7: A file in Source is updated, should be updated as well in replica

To execute the tests, it can be used the pytest package with the simple command:

python -m pytest -vv

Final Notes

To make this task periodically, one may implement the "scheduler" on a CI/CD tool. For example, could be implemented a jenkins job to run the python program and that job can be schedule to execute periodically, out of the box.

• This approach would be a more scalable and manageable solution.