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Send a string between python programs

I want to send some simple information, like an int or a string, between two Python programs. I thought of doing it by having the programs read and write from a single-line file. But that doesn't seem to work, since one file seems to block the file. Especially since I want to check for updates every 1/12 of a second or so.
If it did work, my idea use case would be for one program to send a message with
with open('input.py','w') as file:
file.write('hello')
and receive it with
with open('input.py','r') as file:
print(file.read())
I've been looking into how to do it with sockets, but every 'simple' tutorial seems to be targeted some much more complex use case. So how do I do what I need to do in a way that'll actually work?

The best route to go is to use the socket library. This creates a client-server connection, where you can send strings between programs from there.
server.py:
import socket
s = socket.socket()
print "Socket successfully created"
port = 12345 # Reserve a port on your computer...in our case it is 12345, but it can be anything
s.bind(('', port))
print "Socket binded to %s" %(port)
s.listen(5) # Put the socket into listening mode
print "Socket is listening"
while True:
c, addr = s.accept() # Establish connection with client
print 'Got connection from', addr
c.send('Thank you for connecting') # Send a message to the client
c.close()
client.py:
import socket
s = socket.socket()
port = 12345 # Define the port on which you want to connect
s.connect(('127.0.0.1', port)) # Connect to the server on local computer
print s.recv(1024) # Receive data from the server
s.close()
From the terminal/shell:
# start the server:
$ python server.py
Socket successfully created
Socket binded to 12345
Socket is listening
Got connection from ('127.0.0.1', 52617)
# start the client:
$ python client.py
Thank you for connecting
As you can see, the client was able to receive the string "Thank you for connecting" by the server, thanks to the send() and recv() methods from the socket library.

Multiple TCP to Serial connections python attempt.

So I'm trying to create a python script that will allow multiple TCP connections from different computers and allow talking over the serial from the TCP client. Here is what I was playing with
import sys
import os
import time
import fileinput
import socket
import serial
import thread
serialData = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyS0',9600)
import argparse
def on_new_client(clientsocket,addr):
while True:
msg = clientsocket.recv(1024)
#do some checks and if msg == someWeirdSignal: break:
print addr, ' >> ', msg
serialData.write(msg)
#msg = raw_input('SERVER >> ')
#Maybe some code to compute the last digit of PI, play game or
anything else can go here and when you are done.
clientsocket.send(msg)
clientsocket.close()
def on_Send_client(clientsocket,addr):
while True:
x = serialData.readline()
clientsocket.send(x)
clientsocket.close()
s = socket.socket()
host = '' #ip of raspberry pi
port = 12345
s.bind((host, port))
s.listen(5)
serialData.isOpen()
serialData.write("This is a test")
while True:
c, addr = s.accept()
thread.start_new_thread(on_new_client,(c,addr))
#thread.start_new_thread(on_Send_client,(c,addr))
s.close()
Right now I can connect with multiple TCP clients and eco their data. Their data also gets sent out the serial port. How should I go about buffering the serial data and sending it back out any and all connections that are active? Seems like nothing I look for online can do this correctly and Socat command even fails for multiple connections to serial.

Python efficient socket communication

i recently started making a pure skype resolver and after doing everything fine i stuck on the socket communication.
Let me explain
I'm using python to get the user's IP and then the script opens a socket server and it sends the username to an other program written in .NET
Why is that? Well, the python skype API is not that powerfull so i'm using the axSkype library in order to gather more info.
The problem
The python socket sends the username as it should but i dont know the most efficient way to get the info back. I was thinking opening a socket server in the same script and wait for what the .NET program sends back.
I dont really kwon how to make this as fast as possible so i'm asking for your help.
The code
class api:
def GET(self, username):
skypeapi.activateSkype(username)
time.sleep(1) # because skype is ew
buf = []
print("==========================")
print("Resolving user " + username)
#This is where i'm starting the socket and sending data
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect(("127.0.0.1", 5756))
s.sendall(username)
s.close()
#at this poaint i want to get data back from the .NET app
for logfile in glob.glob('*.log'):
buf += logparse.search(logfile, username)
print("Done!")
print("==========================")
return json.dumps(buf)
class index:
def GET(self):
return render.index()
if __name__ == "__main__":
app.run()

You can bind your socket to the connection. This way, your socket stream will remain open and you will be able to send and receive information easily. Integrate this with the _thread module and you will be able to handle multiple streams. Here is some example code that binds a socket to a stream and just sends back whatever the clients sends it(Although in your case you could send whatever data is necessary)
import socket
from _thread import *
#clientHandle function will just receive and send stuff back to a specific client.
def clientHandle(stream):
stream.send(str.encode("Enter some stuff: "))
while True:
#Here is where the program waits for a response. The 4000 is a buffer limit.
data = stream.recv(4000)
if not data:
#If there is not data, exit the loop.
break
stream.senddall(str.encode(data + "\n"))
#Creating socket.
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
host = "" #In this case the host is the localhost but you can put your host
port = 80
try:
#Here the program tries to bind the socket to the stream.
s.bind((host, port))
except socket.error as e:
print("There was an error: " + str(e))
#Main program loop. Uses multithreading to handle multiple clients.
while True:
conn, addr = s.accept()
print("Connected to: " + addr[0] + ": " + str(addr[1]))
start_new_thread(clientHandle,(conn,))
Now in your case, you can integrate this into your api class(Is that where you want to integrate it? Correct me if I'm wrong.). So now when you define and bind your socket, use this code:
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.bind((host, port))
Where, in your case, host is 127.0.0.1, in other words, your localhost, which can also be accessed by socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname())(but that's a bit verbose), and then port, which for you is 5756. Once you have bounded your socket, you have to accept connections through the following syntax:
conn, addr = s.accept()
Which then you can pass conn and addr to whatever function or just use in any other code.
Regardless of what you use it in, to receive data you can use socket.recv() and pass it a buffer limit. (Remember to decode whatever you receive.) And of course, you send data by using socket.sendall().
If you combine this with the _thread module, as shown above, you can handle multiple api requests, which could come handy in the future.
Hope this helps.

Communicating with multiple clients using one TCP socket python

I am using TCP sockets to communicate between my server and clients. The server code and socket code are as below:
server:
from socket import *
HOST = 'xx.xx.xx.xx'
PORT = 1999
serversocket = socket(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM)
serversocket.bind((HOST,PORT))
print 'bind success'
serversocket.listen(5)
print 'listening'
while True:
(clientsocket, address) = serversocket.accept()
print ("Got client request from",address)
#clientsocket.send('True')
data = clientsocket.recv(1024)
print data
clientsocket.send('True')
clientsocket.close()
client:
import socket
import sys
# Create a TCP/IP socket
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
# Connect the socket to the port on the server given by the caller
server_address = ('xx.xx.xx.xx', 1999)
print >>sys.stderr, 'connecting to %s port %s' % server_address
sock.connect(server_address)
try:
message = 'This is the message. It will be repeated.'
print >>sys.stderr, 'sending'
for x in range (0,1):
name=raw_input ('what is ur name')
print type(name)
sock.send(name)
print sock.recv(1024)
finally:
sock.close()
I am able to communicate with the server from client and able to send and receive data. But the problem I am facing is that I am not able to send and receive data continuously from the server. I have to restart my client code on my laptop to send and receive data again from the server. The way the above client code is working is that when I give a keyboard input, then the socket sends data to server and server responds back. But in the client code, in the for loop if I do two iterations, for the second iteration the data I enter from keyboard is not reaching server. I need to restart my client code to send data again. How do I fix this ?
Also, when once client is connected to the server, the other cannot connect to the server. Any ideas on how to do this ?

You need to design and implement a protocol that specifies what each side is supposed to do and then implement that protocol. You're expecting it to work by magic.
For example:
data = clientsocket.recv(1024)
I suspect you are expecting this to receive a "message". But TCP has no notion of messages. If you need to send and receive messages, you need to define precisely what a "message" is for your protocol and write code to send and receive them.
It may be helpful to look at the specifications for other protocols that use TCP such as HTTP, FTP, or IRC. It really is worth the time to write out a specification of your protocol before you write any code. It will save a lot of pain.

Send/receive Packets with TCP sockets

Recently, I managed to create sockets on my PC and my Raspberry Pi to enable communication between both devices. Currently, the client is able to automatically send messages to the server. I was wondering, if it is possible to modify the scripts to send tcp data packets instead of purely text messages, as I would very much like to control the raspberry pi using my PC in the future without having the need to ssh/etc.
I've looked at some examples, but as I don't have much experience in writing my own scripts/codes, I'm not very sure how to go about doing this. I would appreciate if someone could guide me in the right direction with explanation and some examples if possible.
Anyway here is the server/client script I'm running at the moment:
Client:
import socket
import sys
import struct
import time
#main function
if __name__ == "__main__":
if(len(sys.argv) < 2) :
print 'Usage : python client.py hostname'
sys.exit()
host = sys.argv[1]
port = 8888
#create an INET, STREAMing socket
try:
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
except socket.error:
print 'Failed to create socket'
sys.exit()
print 'Socket Created'
try:
remote_ip = socket.gethostbyname( host )
s.connect((host, port))
except socket.gaierror:
print 'Hostname could not be resolved. Exiting'
sys.exit()
print 'Socket Connected to ' + host + ' on ip ' + remote_ip
#Send some data to remote server
message = "Test"
try :
#Set the whole string
while True:
s.send(message)
print 'Message sent successfully'
time.sleep(1)
print 'Sending...'
except socket.error:
#Send failed
print 'Send failed'
sys.exit()
def recv_timeout(the_socket,timeout=2):
#make socket non blocking
the_socket.setblocking(0)
#total data partwise in an array
total_data=[];
data='';
#beginning time
begin=time.time()
while 1:
#if you got some data, then break after timeout
if total_data and time.time()-begin > timeout:
break
#if you got no data at all, wait a little longer, twice the timeout
elif time.time()-begin > timeout*2:
break
#recv something
try:
data = the_socket.recv(8192)
if data:
total_data.append(data)
#change the beginning time for measurement
begin=time.time()
else:
#sleep for sometime to indicate a gap
time.sleep(0.1)
except:
pass
#join all parts to make final string
return ''.join(total_data)
#get reply and print
print recv_timeout(s)
s.close()
Server:
import socket
import sys
from thread import *
HOST = '' # Symbolic name meaning all available interfaces
PORT = 8888
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
print 'Socket created'
try:
s.bind((HOST, PORT))
except socket.error , msg:
print 'Bind failed. Error Code : ' + str(msg[0]) + ' Message ' + msg[1]
sys.exit()
print 'Socket bind complete'
s.listen(10)
print 'Socket now listening'
#Function for handling connections
def clientthread(conn):
#Sending message to connected client
conn.send('Welcome to the server. Receving Data...\n') #send only takes string
#infinite loop so that function do not terminate and thread do not end.
while True:
#Receiving from client
data = conn.recv(1024)
reply = 'Message Received at the server!\n'
print data
if not data:
break
conn.sendall(reply)
conn.close()
#now keep talking with the client
while 1:
#wait to accept a connection
conn, addr = s.accept()
print 'Connected with ' + addr[0] + ':' + str(addr[1])
#start new thread
start_new_thread(clientthread ,(conn,))
s.close()

socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) already creates a connection that provides a reliable stream of bytes between two machines. This uses TCP, which is on top of IP and Ethernet. The latter two are package-based, while TCP creates a stream of continuous bytes on top of it. It also adds some error checking and error correction, so it is pretty reliable.
I honestly don't understand what you want to achieve with what you call "send packets". What you don't want to do is to create an implementation of TCP yourself, as that's a non-trivial task, so sending RAW packets is out. In general, even using TCP is already relatively low-level and should be avoided unless really necessary.
Using e.g. ZeroMQ you get a message-based interface that does all the transmission for you. It does so on top of TCP (or other transports) and adds more error correction for e.g. disconnects. There, you also have something like "packets", but those are independent of how many TCP or IP packets were required to send it underneath. If you don't want to implement a specific protocol, I'd suggest you use this framework instead of lowlevel TCP sockets.
Another simple alternative is to use HTTP, for which there is also existing code in Python. The downside is that it is always one side that initiates some communication and the other side only replies. If you want some kind of active notification, you either have to poll or use hacks like delaying an answer.

You are already sending data packets - those packets juts happen to contain text data at the moment. Try looking into pickle in the standard libraries and into pyro.