"post_variables" method is overwriting an existing variable with the same variable_id.

[rolldeep]

I'm creating a variable via airflow-client-python. If the variable exists in a local instance of airflow it overwrites the existing one. There is different behavior when I'm creating the connection with the same conn_id - it throws an exception saying Connection already exist. ID: <conn_id>.

Here is the code I use:

import getpass
import json
import socket

import airflow_client.client
import etl.utils.templates.variable as variable
from airflow_client import client
from airflow_client.client.api import variable_api
from airflow_client.client.model.variable import Variable

local_user = input("Enter Local Airflow Admin username: ")
local_pass = getpass.getpass("Enter Local Airflow Admin password: ")
local_host = socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname())
configuration = airflow_client.client.Configuration(
            host=f"{local_host}:8080/api/v1",
            username=local_user,
            password=local_pass)


with client.ApiClient(configuration) as api_client:
    variable_key = "NewVar"
    var_api_instance = variable_api.VariableApi(api_client)
    new_variable = Variable(key=variable_key,
                            value=variable.VARIABLE_VALUE)

    try:
        # Rewrites existing new_variable if it exists
        var_api_instance.post_variables(new_variable)
    except client.ApiException as e:
        print("Exception when calling VariableApi->post_variables: %s\n" % e)

Should we change the default behavior of the airflow-client-python when we are trying to create the variable that already exists?