The ALX-Holberton B&B sums up the implementation of my four months of studies at the ALX-Holberton School - the fullstack software engineering program. The goal of the project is to deploy a replica of the Airbnb Website using my server. The final version of this project will have:

• A command interpreter to manipulate data without a visual interface, like a shell (for development and debugging)
• A website (front-end) with static and dynamic functionalities
• A comprehensive database to manage the backend functionalities
• An API that provides a communication interface between the front and backend of the system.

As you navigate this code base, it is great to note the following concepts, while completing this project.

• How to create a Python package
• How to create a command interpreter in Python using the cmd module
• What is Unit testing and how to implement it in a large project
• How to serialize and deserialize a Class
• How to write and read a JSON file
• How to manage datetime
• What is an UUID
• What is *args and how to use it
• What is **kwargs and how to use it
• How to handle named arguments in a function

• models directory will contain all classes used for the entire project. A class, called “model” in a OOP project is the representation of an object/instance.
• tests directory will contain all unit tests.
• console.py file is the entry point of our command interpreter.
• models/base_model.py file is the base class of all our models. It contains common elements:
  • attributes: id, created_at and updated_at
  • methods: save() and to_json()
• models/engine directory will contain all storage classes (using the same prototype). For the moment I will have only one: file_storage.py.

The project's implementation will happen in the following phases:

The first phase is to manipulate a powerful storage system to give an abstraction between objects and how they are stored and persisted. To achieve this, I will:

• put in place a parent class (called BaseModel) to take care of the initialization, serialization and deserialization of my future instances
• create a simple flow of serialization/deserialization: Instance <-> Dictionary <-> JSON string <-> file
• create all classes used for AirBnB (User, State, City, Place…) that inherit from BaseModel
• create the first abstracted storage engine of the project: File storage.
• create all unittests to validate all our classes and storage engine
• Create a data model
• Manage (create, update, destroy, etc) objects via a console/command interpreter
• Store and persist objects to files (JSON files) S

Your shell should work like this in interactive mode:

$ ./console.py
(hbnb) help

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
(hbnb) 
(hbnb) quit
$
But also in non-interactive mode: (like the Shell project in C)

$ echo "help" | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb) 
$
$ cat test_help
help
$
$ cat test_help | ./console.py
(hbnb)

Documented commands (type help <topic>):
========================================
EOF  help  quit
(hbnb)
$