getting current leader of election recipe in kazoo

Question

I am able to get current contenders using election.lock._get_sorted_children() and respective identifiers using election.lock.contenders(). But election.lock.contenders() also sorts the list, so will election.lock.contenders()[0] always be the leader?

Note, election = zk.Election("/path", "uuid") where zk is the KazooClient

Is there any better way to verify the leader?

Answer 1

Kazoo follows zookepeers recommendation that the node with smallest index should acquire the lock. The Lock::_inner_acquire ensures that the lock is acquired by the smallest index, by always waiting for predecessors to finish before acquiring lock. Hence, election.lock.contenders()[0] will always be the leader (unless the list is empty of-course).