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Python Agent API Reference
The Python Agent APIs provide facilities to support:
- Custom business transactions
- Custom exit points
- Custom data collectors
List of the APIs:
Access to the APIs
Before your app can access the Python Agent APIs, install the Python Agent using:
pip install appdynamics
Then at the top of the instrumented application add:
from appdynamics.agent import api as appd
Start and Stop Agent
init(environ=None, timeout_ms=NO_TIMEOUT)
Initializes the Python Agent.
Call this function at the very beginning of your instrumented application, preferably before any other imports and before creating any other threads.
Agent initialization occurs asynchronously. init()
returns immediately if no timeout is specified but it is possible that the agent will not immediately be ready to report business transactions. In this case, the start_bt() method will return None
.
This function will never raise an exception.
Returns True if the agent is properly configured, False if the agent is not properly configured.
To be properly configured the agent configuration file must contain the minimal settings and possibly some additional settings if they are required for your environment. See Configure the Agent in Install the Python Agent for the minimal settings and Python Agent Settings for the complete list.
environ: dict, optional
If specified, a dictionary of environment variables to use to override the agent's configuration, derived from the actual OS environment variables.
timeout_ms: int or None, optional
Timeout interval in milliseconds.
By default, init()
returns immediately, even if the Python agent has not received its configuration from the controller. If timeout_ms is None, init() blocks until the agent is properly configured. Otherwise, init()
waits for up to timeout_ms for agent to become properly configured.
shutdown(timeout_ms=None)
Shuts down the Python Agent. The agent stops reporting metrics to the Controller.
This function ends all active business transactions and waits for them to finish reporting to the controller before returning.
timeout_ms: int, optional
By default, this function waits until all pending business transactions have been reported before returning. If timeout_ms
is set, this function will return after timeout_ms
, regardless of whether all business transactions have been reported.
Business Transaction Management
start_bt(name, correlation_header=None)
Starts a business transaction of the specified name.
There can only be one active business transaction per thread. Attempts to start subsequent business transactions in the same thread will return None.
Returns a BtHandle on starting the transaction or None if no transaction was started.
name: str
Name of the business transaction being started. The following characters cannot be used in business transaction names: { } [ ] | & ;
correlation_header: str, optional
If specified, a correlation header that has been generated by another AppDynamics agent and passed to this agent as a string. A correlation header provides information to enable this transaction to correlate with a transaction that is upstream to this one.
end_bt(bt_handle, exc=None)
Ends the business transaction identified by bt_handle.
bt_handle: BtHandle
Identifies the business transaction being ended. The handle is returned by start_bt().
exc: Exception (list of Exceptions), optional
If an exception occurred during processing this business transaction that you have caught with a try-except block, and you wish to report the exception as part of the business transaction, pass the exception as the exc
.
If Multiple exceptions are part of the same business transaction and you wish to report all of them, pass the list of exceptions as the exc
.
add_snapshot_data(bt_handle, key, value)
Attaches custom data to transaction snapshots generated for the business transaction identified by bt_handle
.
The custom data is exposed in the USER DATA
tab of the transaction snapshot details in the Controller UI.
The custom data is added to the business transaction but reported only when a transaction snapshot is generated. See Troubleshoot Business Transaction Performance with Transaction Snapshots for information on when transaction snapshots are generated.
bt_handle: BtHandle
Identifies the business transaction to which custom data is added. The handle is returned by start_bt().
key: bytes or unicode
Name of the data item to be reported in the snapshot.
If passed as bytes, the buffer must represent a UTF-8 encoded string.
value: any
Value of the data.
All other objects are converted to str(value)
.
get_active_bt_handle(request)
Returns a BtHandle to the business transaction associated with the request object or None if no such business transaction was found.
This is useful for passing a business transaction handle to another API function, such as start_exit_call()
when the business transaction was created by the default Python Agent instrumentation rather than through the APIs.
request object
The request object associated with an active business transaction. Varies depending on the framework in which the business transaction was started.
See the documentation for the applicable framework to find out how to get the request object.
Framework | Documentation for the Request Object |
---|---|
Flask | https://flask-cn-doc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reqcontext.html |
Django | https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/request-response/ |
CherryPy | https://cherrypy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/basics.html |
WSGI environ | https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ |
Exit Call Management
start_exit_call(bt_handle, exit_type, display_name, identifying_properties, optional_properties=None)
Starts a custom exit call from within the specified business transaction.
There can be only one active exit call per business transaction. Attempts to start subsequent exit calls will return None.
Returns an ExitCallHandle that identifies this exit call.
bt_handle: BTHandle
Identifies the business transaction making the exit call. Handle is returned from start_bt().
exit_type: int
The type of exit call. Valid values are:
appd.EXIT_HTTP
appd.EXIT_DB
appd.EXIT_CACHE
appd.EXIT_QUEUE
display_name:str
Name used to identify this exit call in the controller. This is the label that will be used to display the exit call in the AppDynamics UI.
identifying_properties: dict
A dictionary of name/value pairs that uniquely identify the downstream component being called.
In the Controller UI, these properties are visible in the upper right panel of the backend dashboards.
The key of the dict is the name of the property; the value is the value of the property.
operation: str, optional
A string describing the operation that is being performed, such as the URL of an HTTP request or an SQL query.
optional_properties: dict, optional
A dictionary of name/value pairs that identify additional properties for this exit call. In the Controller UI, these properties are visible in the Exit Calls and Async Activities modal in the snapshot drill-down pane.
end_exit_call(exit_call_handle, exc=None)
Ends the exit call identified by exit_call_handle
.
exit_call_handle: ExitCallHandle
Identifies the exit call being ended. The handle is returned from start_exit_call().
exc: Exception
If an exception occurred during the exit call that you have caught with a try-except
block, and you wish to report the exception as part of the exit call, pass the exception as the exc
argument.
make_correlation_header(bt_handle, exit_call_handle)
Make a correlation header for a custom exit call.
If you are performing custom exit calls to other instrumented tiers, adding a correlation header allows continuing business transactions on the downstream tier.
It is up to you to send the header, as well as parse it at the other end and pass it to start_bt().
Returns a tuple of header name and header value, or None if correlation is disabled.
bt_handle: BtHandle
A handle identifying the business transaction.
exit_call_handle: ExitCallHandle
A handle identifying the exit call.
Context Managers
bt(name, correlation_header=None)
Context manager for reporting some work as a business transaction. Yields a BtHandle
.
If you need to start and end the transaction in different places in the code, use start_bt() and end_bt().
exit_call(bt_handle, exit_type, display_name, identifying_properties, optional_properties=None)
Context manager for adding exit calls to a business transaction. Yields an ExitCallHandle
.
If you need to start and end exit calls in different places in your code, you can use start_exit_call() and end_exit_call().
HTTP Status Codes
HTTP status codes will not cause error transactions when you use the using the Python Agent API to instrument your application, regardless of the error detection configuration.