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Understanding Types

In pyvider.cty, types are the cornerstone of the entire system. They define the structure, constraints, and expectations for your data. By creating precise type definitions, you can ensure that your data is valid and consistent.

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The Role of Types

A pyvider.cty type serves several key purposes:

  1. Validation: A type acts as a schema against which you can validate raw Python data. It enforces the structure and types of the data, ensuring that it conforms to your expectations.

  2. Immutability: When you validate raw data against a type, you get back an immutable cty value. This means that once a value is created, it cannot be changed, which helps to prevent bugs and makes your code more predictable.

  3. Type-Safe Operations: pyvider.cty provides a set of built-in functions that operate on cty values. These functions are type-safe, meaning that they will only work with the correct types of values.

The CtyType Base Class

All pyvider.cty types inherit from the CtyType base class. This class provides the common interface for all types, including the validate method.

The validate Method

The validate method is the most important method of a cty type. It takes a raw Python value as input and attempts to convert it into a cty value of the corresponding type.

cty_value = my_type.validate(raw_python_value)

If the validation is successful, validate returns a new cty value. If the validation fails, it raises a ValidationError with detailed information about what went wrong.

Categories of Types

pyvider.cty provides a rich set of built-in types that can be divided into three main categories:

  1. Primitive Types: These are the basic building blocks of the type system. They represent simple, single values.

    • CtyString: Represents a string of text.
    • CtyNumber: Represents a number (integer or float).
    • CtyBool: Represents a boolean value (True or False).

  2. Collection Types: These types represent collections of other types.

    • CtyList: Represents a list of elements of the same type.
    • CtySet: Represents a set of unique elements of the same type.
    • CtyMap: Represents a map of key-value pairs, where the keys are strings and the values are all of the same type.

  3. Structural Types: These types represent more complex, structured data.

    • CtyObject: Represents an object with a fixed set of named attributes, each with its own type.
    • CtyTuple: Represents a sequence of elements with a fixed length, where each element can have a different type.

In the following chapters, we will explore each of these categories in more detail.

See Also