OMERO Command Line Interface
============================

.. seealso::

    :doc:`/users/command-line-interface`
        User documentation on the Command Line Interface

    :doc:`/sysadmins/command-line-interface`
        System Administrator documentation for the Command Line Interface

Extensions
----------

Plugins can be written and put in the ``lib/python/omero/plugins``
directory. On execution, all plugins in that directory are registered
with the |CLI|. Alternatively, the "--path" argument can be used to point to 
other plugin files or directories.

Thread-safety
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The ``omero.cli.CLI`` should be considered thread-*un*\ safe. A single
connection object is accessible from all plugins via
``self.ctx.conn(args)``, and it is assumed that changes to this object
will only take place in the current thread. The |CLI| instance itself,
however, can be passed between multiple threads, as long as only one
accesses it sequentially, possibly via locking.

.. seealso::
    |ExtendingOmero|
        Other extensions to OMERO

The following should be considered a design document. A portion of the
functionality is included in the milestone :milestone:`OMERO-Beta4` and later
releases, but more functionality will continually be added. If you would
like to request a particular function, please open a ticket.

Design plans
------------

General notes:

-  :file:`bin/omero` will find its installation. Therefore, to install OMERO 
   it is only necessary to unpack the bundle, and put :file:`bin/omero` 
   somewhere on your path.
-  Any command can be produced by symlinking :file:`bin/omero` to a file of 
   the form "omero-command-arg1-arg2". This is useful under :file:`/etc/rc.d` 
   to have a startup script.
-  All commands respond to :omerocmd:`help`.