bfabric-cli

bfabric-cli#

Command-line interface for quick B-Fabric operations.

The bfabric-cli command-line interface provides convenient access to B-Fabric functionality without writing Python code. It’s particularly useful for:

  • Quick one-off queries and operations

  • Batch processing in shell scripts

  • Interactive data exploration

  • Testing API calls

  • System administration tasks

Prerequisites#

Command Overview#

bfabric-cli organizes commands by functionality:

Core Commands#

Command

Purpose

bfabric-cli api

Generic CRUD operations on B-Fabric entities

bfabric-cli dataset

Dataset-specific operations (read, upload, download)

bfabric-cli executable

Executable operations (show, upload, dump)

bfabric-cli workunit

Workunit operations (check status, export definitions)

bfabric-cli feeder

Feeder operations for creating importresources

Legacy/Deprecated#

Command

Status

bfabric-cli external-job

Transitory - will be removed in future release

Getting Help#

Explore the command hierarchy using --help:

# Show all top-level commands
bfabric-cli --help

# Show api subcommands
bfabric-cli api --help

# Show specific command details
bfabric-cli api read --help

Common Patterns#

Using Named Parameters#

While many parameters can be passed positionally, using named parameters is recommended for clarity and future compatibility:

# Recommended (explicit)
bfabric-cli api read resource --limit 10

# Also works (positional)
bfabric-cli api read resource 10

Specifying Multiple Values#

For query parameters that accept multiple values, repeat the key-value pair:

# Query multiple IDs
bfabric-cli api read resource id 12345 id 12346 id 12347

Output Formats#

Most commands support multiple output formats:

# Interactive table (default)
bfabric-cli api read resource --format table-rich

# JSON
bfabric-cli api read resource --format json

# YAML
bfabric-cli api read resource --format yaml

# TSV (tab-separated values)
bfabric-cli api read resource --format tsv

Saving Output#

Use --file to save output to a file:

bfabric-cli api read resource --limit 100 --format json --file results.json

Python Equivalence#

The api read command displays the equivalent Python code, making it easy to transition from CLI to Python:

bfabric-cli api read resource --limit 10
# Outputs: results = client.read(endpoint='resource', obj={}, max_results=100)

Confirmation Prompts#

Destructive operations (update, delete) require confirmation:

bfabric-cli api update workunit 12345 description "Updated description"
# Prompts: Do you want to proceed with the update? [y/N]

# Skip confirmation (use with caution!)
bfabric-cli api update workunit 12345 description "Updated description" --no-confirm

Command Documentation#

Contents