At the end of this exercise, you'll have autocomplete turned on for the btp CLI and have a general overview of your BTP account and what resources are available.
If you've had a look at the output from btp help you'll know that there are multiple commands that the CLI supports, and different groups of objects upon which these commands operate:
SAP BTP command line interface (client v2.83.0)
Usage: btp [OPTIONS] ACTION GROUP/OBJECT PARAMS
Each GROUP contains multiple OBJECTS, on which you can perform ACTIONS.
ACTIONS:
list, get, create, update, delete, add, remove, assign, unassign, enable,
move, register, unregister, subscribe, unsubscribe, share, unshare, migrate,
restore, rotate
GROUPS:
accounts Objects related to the account model, subscriptions, and environments
security Authorization objects and users
services Objects related to SAP Service Manager
Example help calls:
btp help list Commands for ACTION "list"
btp help accounts Objects in GROUP "accounts"
btp help accounts/available-environment Actions for OBJECT "available-environment"
btp help list accounts/available-environment Command-specific help
btp help all Overview of all commands
General actions:
help Display help
feedback Give us feedback
login Log in to a global account of SAP BTP
logout Log out from SAP BTP
target Set the target for subsequent commands
enable autocomplete Enable command autocompletion
disable autocomplete Disable command autocompletion
list config List current configuration settings
set config Change configuration settings
reset config Change configuration settings to default values
Options:
--config Specify location of configuration file
--format Change output format. Valid values: text (default), json
--help Display help
--info Show version and current context
--verbose Print tracing information for support
--version Print client version
Documentation:
Command Reference: https://help.sap.com/docs/btp/btp-cli-command-reference/btp-cli-command-reference
Get Started: https://developers.sap.com/tutorials/cp-sapcp-getstarted.html
Concepts and How-Tos: https://help.sap.com/docs/btp/sap-business-technology-platform/account-administration-using-sap-btp-command-line-interface-btp-cli
It's possible to get an overview of what the possible targets of each command are, by asking for help on that particular command.
👉 Try it now, asking for help with the "list" action:
btp list --helpHere's the sort of output that you'll see:
SAP BTP command line interface (client v2.83.0)
Usage: btp [OPTIONS] ACTION GROUP/OBJECT PARAMS
Available "list" commands:
btp list accounts/available-environment Show all available environments for a subaccount
btp list accounts/available-region Show all available regions for a global account
btp list accounts/custom-property Deprecated. Show all custom properties
btp list accounts/entitlement Show all the entitlements and quota assignments
btp list accounts/environment-instance Show all environment instances of a subaccount
btp list accounts/label Show all user-defined labels of a subaccount or directory
btp list accounts/resource-provider Show all resource provider instances
btp list accounts/subaccount Show all subaccounts in a global account
btp list accounts/subscription Show all applications to which a subaccount is entitled to subscribe
btp list config List current configuration settings
btp list security/api-credential Show all security API credentials for API access
btp list security/app Show all apps
btp list security/available-idp Show all available SAP Cloud Identity Services tenants
btp list security/role Show all roles
btp list security/role-collection Show all role collections
btp list security/settings Show the security settings of a global account or subaccount
btp list security/token-key Show all signing keys for access tokens
btp list security/trust Show all trust configurations
btp list security/user Show all users
btp list services/binding Show all service bindings
btp list services/broker Show all service brokers
btp list services/instance Show all service instances
btp list services/offering Show all service offerings
btp list services/plan Show all service plans
btp list services/platform Show all platforms
Example of command-specific help:
btp help list accounts/available-environment
You can also use this style of help invocation too:
btp help list.
But there's a much more comfortable way, and that's having the btp CLI itself suggest what's possible to you as you feel your way into what you want to do. This is a very common pattern and feature in shells such as Bash, and many command line programs offer such a facility, which is commonly referred to as "autocomplete".
In the output from btp help you'll have already seen how to do this: btp enable autocomplete. Asking for help on this (btp enable autocomplete --help or btp help enable autocomplete) will give you lots of details, one of which is that you need to specify the shell for which to enable the autocomplete feature. Within our Dev Space in App Studio (and also in the container if you're taking that route) we're enjoying The-One-True-Shell™, i.e. Bash :-).
👉 Set up autocomplete now, selecting /home/user/.bashrc (option 2) for the RCFile:
btp enable autocomplete bashHere's an example of such a setup:
user: user $ btp enable autocomplete bash
Which RCFile should be used for the installation?
1: /home/user/.bash_profile
2: /home/user/.bashrc
3: /home/user/.profile
4: Custom
Enter option> 2
Autocomplete script for bash has been installed to /home/user/.bashrc.
You must start a new terminal session to activate the installed script.
Tips:
Use the TAB key to complete commands and provide valid command actions, options, and parameters.
Use the TAB key to cycle through the suggestion lists and the ENTER key to select.
OK
Note that a script has been installed to your btp CLI configuration directory, and the .bashrc file was chosen to contain the autocomplete setup (the invocation of that script on shell startup). This is recommended.
👉 Have a look what was added by looking at the last few lines of the .bashrc file like this:
tail $HOME/.bashrcYou'll see towards the end of the output that there are extra lines that follows the two lines you yourself added in earlier exercises:
alias bu='source <(tail -1 /home/user/.bashrc)'
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
export BTP_CLIENTCONFIG=$HOME/.config/btp/config.json
### Begin SAP BTP command line interface autocomplete
eval "$(btp --autocomplete=init:bash)"
### End SAP BTP command line interface autocomplete👉 The eval line, which does the heavy lifting to enable autocompletion for btp, is surrounded by a comment line above and below. Our simple bu alias only operates on the last line in the .bashrc file, so before running it to have this update take effect, remove the last line (the ### End SAP BTP command line interface autocomplete one) with:
sed -i '$d' $HOME/.bashrc👉 Now invoke the update with bu to have it take effect immediately:
buNow you're ready to try the autocomplete feature out.
👉 Start by typing btp (followed by a space) and then hitting Tab. You'll first see the possible commands. Choose one by starting to type it and autocompleting it with Tab, and then choose from the list of GROUP / OBJECTs presented. You should spend a minute or two exploring like this - it's much easier to get a feel for autocomplete by trying it, rather than reading about it. But in case you want to read more about it, see the link to the blog post in the Further reading section below, which is from where this animated demonstration comes:
You have everything set up to be able to explore your BTP account; you can invoke the btp CLI from wherever you are, you're logged in, you have your global account and "trial" subaccount targeted, and you have autocomplete turned on for the most comfortable experience.
The authentication token has a limited lifetime, so you may have to re-authenticate at some stage with
btp login.
It's time to explore your account and related BTP resources.
👉 Spend a few minutes trying some of these commands, and examining the output:
| Action | Group/Object | Description |
|---|---|---|
get |
accounts/global-account |
A high level summary of the key information for your global account; add the parameter --show-hierarchy to get a depiction of the relationship between the directories & subaccounts within |
list |
accounts/entitlement |
A list of the entitlements for your targeted subaccount |
list |
accounts/available-region |
A list of the regions & providers available for your global account |
list |
security/role-collection |
A list of role collections available in your account |
Notice again that the general pattern of plural GROUP and singular OBJECT components is evident here too.
At this point you have autocomplete working and you should feel comfortable invoking the btp CLI from the command line and exploring resources relating to your BTP account.
If you finish earlier than your fellow participants, you might like to ponder these questions. There isn't always a single correct answer and there are no prizes - they're just to give you something else to think about.
- How would you discover or confirm that the shell you're actually using is indeed a Bash shell?
- Output for some of the commands you used in exploring your account probably wrapped over multiple lines. How might you remedy that?