Getting started with Cloud Storage
==================================

This tutorial focuses on using ``gcloud`` to access Google Cloud Storage.
We'll go through the basic concepts, how to operate on buckets and blobs,
and how to handle access control, among other things.

We're going to assume that you've already downloaded and installed the
library.

Creating a project
------------------

.. include:: _components/creating-a-project.rst

Enabling the API
----------------

Now that you created a project, you need to **turn on** the Google Cloud
Storage API.  This is sort of like telling Google which services you intend
to use for this project.

* **Click on APIs & Auth** on the left hand side, and scroll down to where
it says "Google Cloud Storage JSON API".

* **Click the "Off" button** on the right side to turn it into an "On"
button.

Enabling a service account
--------------------------

.. include:: _components/enabling-a-service-account.rst

Creating a connection
---------------------

The first step in accessing Cloud Storage is to create a connection to the
service::

  >>> from gcloud import storage
  >>> connection = storage.get_connection(project_name)

We're going to use this :class:`connection
<gcloud.storage.connection.Connection>` object for the rest of this guide.

Creating a bucket
-----------------

Once you've established a connection to Cloud Storage, the first thing you
typically want to do is create a new bucket.  A bucket is a container used
to store objects in Cloud Storage (if you're familiar with S3, buckets on
Cloud Storage mean the same thing).  Think of each bucket as a single "disk
drive", where you can store lots of files on each.  How you organize your
data is up to you, but it's typical to group common data in a single
bucket.

Let's create a bucket:

  >>> bucket = connection.create_bucket('test')
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    File "gcloud/storage/connection.py", line 340, in create_bucket
      data={'name': bucket.name})
    File "gcloud/storage/connection.py", line 324, in api_request
      raise make_exception(response, content)
    ...

**Whoops!**

It might be important to mention that bucket names are like domain names:
it's one big namespace that we all share, so you have to pick a bucket name
that isn't already taken.

It's up to you to decide what a good name is, let's assume that you found a
unique name and are ready to move on with your newly created bucket.

Storing data
------------

OK, so you have a bucket. Now what?  Cloud Storage is just an arbitrary
data container, so you can put whatever format of data you want.  The
naming of your files is also arbitrary, however the Cloud Storage online
file browser tries to make it feel a bit like a file system by recognizing
forward-slashes (``/``) so if you want to group data into "directories",
you can do that.

The fundamental container for a file in Cloud Storage is called an Object,
however ``gcloud`` uses the term ``Blob`` to avoid confusion with the
Python built-in ``object``.

If you want to set some data, you just create a ``Blob`` inside your bucket
and store your data inside the blob::

  >>> blob = bucket.new_blob('greeting.txt')
  >>> blob.upload_from_string('Hello world!')

:func:`new_blob <gcloud.storage.bucket.Bucket.new_blob>` creates a
:class:`Blob <gcloud.storage.blob.Blob>` object locally and
:func:`upload_from_string <gcloud.storage.blob.Blob.upload_from_string>`
allows you to put a string into the blob.

Now we can test if it worked::

  >>> blob = bucket.get_blob('greeting.txt')
  >>> print blob.download_as_string()
  Hello world!

What if you want to save the contents to a file?

  >>> blob.download_to_file('greetings.txt')

Then you can look at the file in a terminal::

  $ cat greetings.txt
  Hello world!

And what about when you're not dealing with text?
That's pretty simple too::

  >>> blob = bucket.new_blob('kitten.jpg')
  >>> blob.upload_from_filename('kitten.jpg')

And to test whether it worked?

  >>> blob = bucket.get_blob('kitten.jpg')
  >>> blob.download_to_file('kitten2.jpg')

and check if they are the same in a terminal::

  $ diff kitten.jpg kitten2.jpg

Notice that we're using :func:`get_blob
<gcloud.storage.bucket.Bucket.get_blob>` to retrieve a blob we know exists
remotely.  If the blob doesn't exist, it will return ``None``.

.. note:: ``get_blob`` is **not** retrieving the entire object's data.

If you want to "get-or-create" the blob (that is, overwrite it if it
already exists), you can use :func:`new_blob
<gcloud.storage.bucket.Bucket.new_blob>`.  However, keep in mind, the blob
is not created until you store some data inside of it.

If you want to check whether a blob exists, you can use the ``in`` operator
in Python::

  >>> print 'kitten.jpg' in bucket
  True
  >>> print 'does-not-exist' in bucket
  False

Accessing a bucket
------------------

If you already have a bucket, use :func:`get_bucket
<gcloud.storage.connection.Connection.get_bucket>` to retrieve the bucket
object::

  >>> bucket = connection.get_bucket('my-bucket')

If you want to get all the blobs in the bucket, you can use
:func:`get_all_blobs <gcloud.storage.bucket.Bucket.get_all_blobs>`::

  >>> blobs = bucket.get_all_blobs()

However, if you're looking to iterate through the blobs, you can use the
bucket itself as an iterator::

  >>> for blob in bucket:
  ...   print blob

Deleting a bucket
-----------------

You can delete a bucket using the :func:`delete_bucket
<gcloud.storage.connection.Connection.delete_bucket>` method::

  >>> connection.delete_bucket('my-bucket')

Remember, the bucket you're deleting needs to be empty, otherwise you'll
get an error.

If you have a full bucket, you can delete it this way::

  >>> bucket = connection.delete_bucket('my-bucket', force=True)

Listing available buckets
-------------------------

The :class:`Connection <gcloud.storage.connection.Connection>` object
itself is iterable, so you can loop over it, or call ``list`` on it to get
a list object::

  >>> for bucket in connection:
  ...   print bucket.name
  >>> print list(connection)

Managing access control
-----------------------

Cloud storage provides fine-grained access control for both buckets and
blobs.  `gcloud` tries to simplify access control by working with entities
and "grants".  On any ACL, you get a reference to an entity, and then
either grant or revoke a specific access level.  Additionally, we provide
two default entities: all users, and all authenticated users.

For example, if you want to grant read access to all users on your bucket::

  >>> bucket.get_acl().all().grant_read()

For more detail on access control, see :mod:`gcloud.storage.acl`.
