iSock 1.0.0

Simple client - server library based on TCP SocketServer

Simple client - server library based on TCP SocketServer

iSocket is a library that allows very rapid development of client - server applications in Python. If you develop software that runs on several machines which communicate with each other this library might come in handy.

Main features:

• Very simple server configuration.

• Easy way to transfer back and forth complex data structures (everything that is pickable can be send and receive).

• iSocket structure allows clean design of your application.

• Client can easily access variables on server.

iSocket is written in Python 2.7 and works on Windows and Linux. Source code can be found here: https://github.com/0x1001/isock

iSocket installation

Download zip from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/isock/ web pages. Unzip it and run:

python setup.py install

iSocket example

Sample code below shows usage example. You can learn here how to start server and client and how to define server actions.

List of actions used in this example:

• Echo - Sends back all data to client.

• Exec - Executes system call on server and transfers console output to client.

• ExecHistory - Sends system call history to client.

• Time - Sends current server time to client.

Example:

import threading
from isock import Server
from isock import Client
from isock import Action

################################################################################
############################ Server actions ####################################
################################################################################
class Echo(Action):
    def action(self,data):
        return data

class Exec(Action):
    def __init__(self,exec_history):
        self.exec_history = exec_history

    def action(self,data):
        import subprocess
        self.exec_history.append(data)
        return subprocess.check_output(data,shell=True)

class ExecHistory(Action):
    def __init__(self,exec_history):
        self.exec_history = exec_history

    def action(self,data):
        return self.exec_history

class Time(Action):
    def action(self,data):
        import datetime
        return datetime.datetime.now()

################################################################################
############################ Server startup ####################################
################################################################################
history = []

server = Server("localhost",4440)
server.addAction(Echo())
server.addAction(Exec(history))
server.addAction(ExecHistory(history))
server.addAction(Time())
server_thread = threading.Thread(target=server.serve_forever)
server_thread.start()

################################################################################
############################ Client session ####################################
################################################################################
client = Client("localhost",4440)

print "############################# Echo test ################################"
print client.runAction(Echo,"Echo test!")

print "############################# Exec test ################################"
print client.runAction(Exec,"dir")
print client.runAction(Exec,["python","-V"])

print "############################# Exec history #############################"
print client.runAction(ExecHistory)

print "############################# Server time ##############################"
print client.runAction(Time)

################################################################################
############################ Server shutdown ###################################
################################################################################
server.shutdown()
server.server_close()
server_thread.join()

iSocket server guide

Server can be imported from isock:

from isock import Server

Server constructor takes two required arguments: ip (string) and port (int):

server = Server("localhost",4440)

To add actions to server use addAction method. It takes one required argument: action (Action):

server.addAction(Echo())

To start server use serve_forever() blocking method:

server.serve_forever()

To stop server use shutdown() method:

server.shutdown()

iSocket client guide

Client can be imported from isock:

from isock import Client

Client constructor takes two required arguments and one optional: server_ip (string), server_port (int), retry (int). Default retry argument is set to 3. Which allows 3 retries before ClientException is raised:

client = Client("localhost",4440)

To run action on server use runAction() method which takes one required argument and one optional: action (Action class ref), data (any pickable data):

client.runAction(Echo,"Echo test!")

Client method runAction() returns data send by server or rasies exception if action ended with exception on server.

iSocket action guide

All actions that server can perform have to inherit from Action class. Action class can be imported from isock:

from isock import Action

Both client and server have to have access to user defined action classes. I suggeste to keep them in separated file that can be imported in both server and client. To define new action create new class that inherits from Action class and overrides action() method. This method takes one required argument: data (any pickable data send by client). If client does not send any data this argument is set to None:

class Echo(Action):
    def action(self,data):
        return data

Method action() returns data that are send back to client.

To access server variable in your action class define constructor that stores reference to server variable as attribute, which you can then access in action method:

class ExecHistory(Action):
    def __init__(self,exec_history):
        self.exec_history = exec_history

    def action(self,data):
        return self.exec_history

Contribution

Everyone is welcome to contribute to this project. Source code is available on GitHub. https://github.com/0x1001/isock