socket_for_humans

A simplified TCP/IP socket setup suitable for many/most lightweight client server programs. The python standard library socket module has a relatively steep learning curve. The socket_for_humans module will help get most projects up and running quickly by wrapping the Python standard library socket module in an easy to use interface.

socket_for_humans provides two types of objects Server and Connection. The Server object is used to passively listen for new connections, while the Connection object is used to actively initiate a connection and thereafter, once a connection is established, for sending and receiving on both sides of the socket communications.

By default the send and receive functions take/return str rather than bytes, which is probably what most users initially want, if you want bytes then use str_mode=False in the object constructors.

socket_for_humans is the communications module used in the simple_gossip python gossip protocol.

Usage:

Essential usage follows this pattern:

Example server code:

from socket_for_humans import Server

addr = ('127.0.0.1', 12345)
my_server = Server(addr)
while True:
    msg, conn, addr = my_server.get_next()
    # msg is the msg recieved by the server.
    # conn is a Connection instance used to continue send and receive with client
    # addr is the clients address like (ip, port)
    if msg:
        # do whatever you need to do with received msg
        print(msg)
        conn.send("here is my reply")
        msg2 = conn.recv()
        print(msg2)
        conn.send("here is my further reply, if you really want to know")
        # continue to use conn to send and receive until the purpose is satisfied.
        conn.close()

Example client code:

from socket_for_humans import Connection

addr = ('127.0.0.1', 12345)
my_client = Connection(addr)

msg = "a question to the server"
print("Client sending: " + msg)
my_client.send(msg)
reply = my_client.recv()
print("Client received: " + reply)

msg2 = "a further question to the server"
print("Client sending: " + msg2)
my_client.send(msg2)
reply2 = my_client.recv()
print("Client received: " + reply2)
# continue to use my_client to send and receive until the purpose is satisfied.
my_client.close()

See these example files for more usage ideas

Run examples/example_server.py and examples/example_client.py at the same time on same machine to see a 2-way communication on a socket in just a few lines.

Run examples/example_server_b.py and examples/example_client_b.py at the same time on same machine to see the same example with binary bytes data instead of str data.