[BEAM-8814] --no_auth flag is boolean type and is misleading

• Type: Bug
• Status: Triage Needed
• Priority: P1
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.14.0, 2.15.0, 2.16.0, 2.17.0
• Fix Version/s: 2.18.0
• Component/s: sdk-py-harness
• Labels: backward-incompatible
• Environment: Python2, Python3
• Flags: Patch, Important
• Assignee: David Song
• Reporter: David Song
• Created: 23/Nov/19 01:44
• Updated: 13/Apr/23 10:58
• Resolved: 05/Dec/19 17:52

Description

Pipeline options defines a no_auth flag that is type=bool. This type is known to be ambiguous because it will expect a value, but anything passed to it will be considered True. For example, passing in "--no_auth=False" would still evaluate to True. We should instead use action="store_true" which only detects whether the flag is passed or not. 

Furthermore, PipelineOptions.from_dictionary will assume that boolean flags are passed in without values (e.g. passing --no_auth, instead of --no_auth=True). This, combined with type=bool failing without a value, will ensure that it always fails. 

sdk_worker_main is the only place that uses from_dictionary (aside from tests), and it will crash if no_auth flag is passed. Looking at pipeline_options_test, tests that call from_dictionary will feed in get_all_options, which means it have intended to only be used for serializing/deserializing flag options.

So from here, to support the no_auth flag:

• we change no_auth so that it is action="store_true", or
• we change sdk_worker_main so that it does not use from_dictionary

Or both.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #10202