Adding blocking/non blocking option and nodejs version in openwhisk node-red node

[gkousiouris]

Hi all,

We would like to add a couple of options in the node-red-node-openwhisk node, mainly:

1. the ability to have configurable blocking or non blocking action invocations. Currently the option is hardcoded to true in the node code but this creates limitations with relation to getting the activation id of the action and retrying in the future for the result. In case of a blocking invocation timeout (>65 seconds) it does not return the typical wsk result:
   ok: invoked /_/dockeraction, but the request has not yet finished, with id acc64....
   but the node throws an error: "Cannot read property 'result' of undefined"

2. currently the nodejs runtime registered for action creation is statically set to nodejs 6, which is deprecated from current Openwhisk versions, throwing an error on deployment of new actions, so we would like also to give that as a selection.

Both options could be set either through the UI or through relevant msg fields. We can potentially add these options ourselves, based on the discussion here:

Editing the code of a node

Because everything in Node-RED is based on node.js packages, you can simply take your own fork of a node if you need to make some tweak to it, you can then install your own version. That gives you the added advantage that you will be able to track changes to the original over time to see whether you still need your fork or whether you need to update it. Of course, if your proposed change might help others, it is the neighbourly thing to do to offer your code change back to the author so that t…

however it is advised that we first contact the node creators. Then in the node github page

ibmresearchuk/node-red-node-openwhisk/blob/eb2dd9554a0e51e0970ee39908240c265ced4014/CONTRIBUTING.md

before creating the issue it is mentioned to discuss this in this mailing list, so here we are:)

Please advise on if these changes seem reasonable or if there is something we have overlooked, and how to proceed. Should we submit an issue or proceed with creating our version and then potentially make a pull request?

Thanks,
George

[Steve-Mcl]

GitHub - ibmresearchuk/node-red-node-openwhisk: A set of nodes to interact with IBM Bluemix OpenWhisk is not a node-red core node nor is it maintained by the node-red team.

Feel free to contact the author and / or fork / PR the node as required or as per its description

Please raise any bug reports on the project's issue tracker.

[dceejay]

I have access to it, so feel free to raise a pull request