11. Plugin Dependencies

Sometimes you need to be able to share a plugin feature with another. For example imagine you have a series of plugin configured the same way, you might want to make them depend on a central plugin taking care of the configuration that would share it with all the others.

11.1. Declaring dependencies

If you want to be able to use a plugin from another, the later needs to be activated before the former. You can ask Errbot to do so by adding a comma separated name list of the plugins your plugin is depending on in the Core section of your plug file like this:

[Core]
Name = MyPlugin
Module = myplugin
DependsOn = OtherPlugin1, OtherPlugin2

11.2. Using dependencies

Once a dependent plugin has been declared, you can use it as soon as your plugin is activated.

from errbot import BotPlugin, botcmd

class OtherPlugin1(BotPlugin):

    def activate(self):
        self.my_variable = 'hello'
        super().activate()

If you want to use it from MyPlugin:

from errbot import BotPlugin, botcmd

class MyPlugin(BotPlugin):

    @botcmd
    def hello(self, msg, args):
        return self.get_plugin('OtherPlugin1').my_variable

Important to note: if you want to use a dependent plugin from within activate, you need to be in activated state, for example:

from errbot import BotPlugin, botcmd

class MyPlugin(BotPlugin):

    def activate(self):
        super().activate()  # <-- needs to be *before* get_plugin
        self.other = self.get_plugin('OtherPlugin1')

    @botcmd
    def hello(self, msg, args):
        return self.other.my_variable