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How to handle TCP connection events in order to call methods within other class?

I am creating a robot which is going to be driven by the commands received over TCP connection. Therefore, I will have a robot class with methods (e.g. sense(), drive()...) and the class for TCP connection.
To establish TCP connection, I looked at examples from twisted. On the client side, I have written a client.py script for connection handling:
from twisted.internet import reactor, protocol
import random
from eventhook import EventHook
import common
#from Common.socketdataobjects import response
# a client protocol
class EchoClient(protocol.Protocol):
"""Once connected, send a message, then print the result."""
def connectionMade(self):
self.transport.write("hello, world!")
#the server should be notified that the connection to the robot has been established
#along with robot state (position)
#eventConnectionEstablishedHook.fire()
def dataReceived(self, data):
print "Server said:", data
self.transport.write("Hello %s" % str(random.randint(1,10)))
'''
serverMessage = common.deserializeJson(data)
command = serverMessage.command
arguments = serverMessage.arguments
#here we get for example command = "DRIVE"
#arguments = {motor1Speed: 50, motor2Speed: 40}
instead of above response, used for testing purposes,
the commands should be extracted from the data and according to the command,
the method in Robot instance should be called.
When the command execution finishes, the self.transport.write() method should be called
to notify the server that the command execution finished
'''
def connectionLost(self, reason):
print "connection lost"
class EchoFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
protocol = EchoClient
def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection failed - goodbye!"
reactor.stop()
def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection lost - goodbye!"
reactor.stop()
# this connects the protocol to a server runing on port 8000
def initializeEventHandlers(connectionEstablishedHook):
global connection
connection.established = 0
global eventConnectionEstablishedHook
eventConnectionEstablishedHook = connectionEstablishedHook
def main():
f = EchoFactory()
reactor.connectTCP("localhost", 8000, f)
reactor.run()
# this only runs if the module was *not* imported
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
Beside this script, I have a robot class:
Class Robot(object():
def __init(self)__:
self.position = (0,0)
def drive(self, speedMotor1, speedMotor2, driveTime)
updateMotor1State(speedMotor1)
updateMotor2State(speedMotor2)
time.sleep(driveTime)
#when the execution finished, the finish status should be sent to client in order to inform the server
return "Finished"
def sense(self)
#logic to get the data from the environment
What I would like to do, is to receive the data(commands) from TCP connection and then call the according method in Robot instance. Some procedures might take longer (e.g. driving), so I tried to use events, but haven't figured out the appropriate way to communicate between TCP client and robot using events:
if __name__ == '__main__':
robotController = Robot()
eventController = Controller()
connectionEstablishedHook = EventHook()
client.initializeEventHandlers(connectionEstablishedHook)
eventController.connection = connectionEstablishedHook
client.main()
I tried to create ClientMainProgram script, where I wanted to create an instance of a robot, an instance of TCP client and implement the communication between them using events.
Previously I have managed to implement event handling using Michael Foord's events pattern on a simpler example. I would be very thankful if anyone could provide the solution to this question or any similar example which might be helpful to solve this problem.

Events are easily represented using regular Python function calls.
For example, if your protocol looks like this:
from twisted.internet.protocol import Protocol
class RobotController(Protocol):
def __init__(self, robot):
self.robot = robot
def dataReceived(self, data):
for byte in data:
self.commandReceived(byte)
def commandReceived(self, command):
if command == "\x00":
# drive:
self.robot.drive()
elif command == "\x01":
# sense:
self.robot.sense()
...
(The specifics of the protocol used in this example are somewhat incidental. I picked this protocol because it's very simple and has almost no parsing logic. For your real application I suggest you use twisted.protocols.amp.)
Then all you need to do is make sure the robot attribute is properly initialized. You can do this easily using the somewhat newer endpoint APIs that can often replace use of factories:
from sys import argv
from twisted.internet.endpoints import clientFromString, connectProtocol
from twisted.internet.task import react
def main(reactor, description):
robot = ...
endpoint = clientFromString(reactor, description)
connecting = connectProtocol(endpoint, RobotController(robot))
def connected(controller):
...
connecting.addCallback(connected)
return connecting
react(main, argv[1:])

python twisted transport.write never sends data

I have a server which is loosely based on the Twisted example chat server. It works with telnet. Now I want a client to connect to it.I copied the sample one-time client. The problem is the server never receives the "hello" string which is supposed to start the "conversation". I read in the FAQ that a common mistake is to block the reactor from running but I cannot see where I could be doing that in the code below. Can anyone tell me what is wrong?
from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.internet.protocol import Factory, Protocol
from twisted.internet.endpoints import TCP4ClientEndpoint
class Greeter(Protocol):
def sendMessage(self, msg):
self.transport.write("%s\n" % msg)
class GreeterFactory(Factory):
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
return Greeter()
def gotProtocol(p):
p.sendMessage("hello")
reactor.callLater(1, p.sendMessage, "/p2")
reactor.callLater(2, p.transport.loseConnection)
point = TCP4ClientEndpoint(reactor, "localhost", 8123)
d = point.connect(GreeterFactory())
d.addCallback(gotProtocol)
reactor.run()

OK. I hope this helps someone else. My problem above was that my server (which used lineReceived):
def lineReceived(self, line):
print "line received: %s" % line
if self.state == "GETNAME":
self.handle_GETNAME(line)
else:
self.handle_CHAT(line)
expected a carriage-return AND linefeed. So by changing my sendMessage above to:
def sendMessage(self, msg):
self.transport.write("%s\r\n" % msg)
it now works magically! So frustratingly simple.

Sending message from one server to another in Twisted

I'm a complete Twisted AND Python noob, so my apologies if any of my terminology is wrong or anything I've done is silly. Nonetheless....
I've implemented my servers in the following way:
def makeServer(application, port):
factory = protocol.ServerFactory()
factory.protocol = MyChat
factory.clients = []
tempServer = internet.TCPServer(port, factory)
tempServer.setServiceParent(application)
return tempServer
application = service.Application("chatserver")
server1 = makeServer(application, port=1025)
server2 = makeServer(application, port=1026)
server3 = makeServer(application, port=1027)
Note that MyChat is an event handling class that has a "receiveMessage" action:
def lineReceived(self, line):
print "received", repr(line)
for c in self.factory.clients:
c.transport.write(message + '\n')
I want server1 to be able to pass messages to server2. Rather, I want server1 to be treated as a client of server2. If server1 receives the message "hi" then I want it to send that same exact message to server2. The only thing server1 needs to be able to do is to send the message it received from its client to server2.
How can I accomplish this?
NOTE: You can totally change the way I'm implementing my server if it helps.

Different parts of your application can interact with each other using method calls.
Send a message to server2 really just means Call a method on one of the objects related to server2.
For example, in MyChat, you might have:
def lineReceived(self, line):
print "received", repr(line)
for c in self.factory.clients:
c.transport.write(message + '\n')
for server in self.factory.otherServers:
server.otherServerMessage(self, line)
This supposes a couple things:
You add a new otherServers attribute to your factory. Its contents are objects related to the other listening servers you have set up. These might be factory objects or protocol objects. It depends on what's most convenient based on what you intend to do with the message.
You give those related objects a new method, otherServerMessage, to handle messages delivered this way. If you were to deliver the messages directly to MyChat.lineReceived (which you easily could, if you wanted) then I would expect you to end up with infinite recursion; having a different method lets you differentiate between messages received from a client and messages received from another server.

You will probably need to implement a separate client. It is possible that an object can be both a client and a server, but I doubt it will be worth it and you are likely to run into trouble.
I suggest that the server instantiates a client object, which you connect to the 'next' server. The client can for example be an instance variable on the server.
Example:
class MyChat(LineReceiver):
def connectionMade(self):
print "Proxy: connected"
factory = protocol.ClientFactory()
class Proxy(protocol.Protocol):
def relayMessage(self, msg):
self.transport.write(msg)
factory.protocol = Proxy
point = TCP4ClientEndpoint(reactor, "localhost", 1025)
conn = point.connect(factory)
conn.addCallback(self.hasConnection)
def hasConnection(self, client):
print "Proxy: Connected to relay", client
self.client = client
def lineReceived(self, line):
print "Proxy: received", repr(line)
self.client.transport.write(line+"\n")
class MyEcho(LineReceiver):
def lineReceived(self, line):
print "Echo: received", repr(line)
factory = protocol.ServerFactory()
factory.protocol = MyChat
reactor.listenTCP(1024, factory)
factory = protocol.ServerFactory()
factory.protocol = MyEcho
reactor.listenTCP(1025, factory)

You need just declare clients inside your server, like this:
factory = SomeClientFactory('ws://127.0.0.1')
connectWS(factory)
and in your Client Class:
class SomeClient(WebSocketClientProtocol):
def __init__(self):
pass
def sendCommand(self):
self.sendMessage('A message to another server')
def onOpen(self):
self.sendCommand()
def onClose(self, wasClean, code, reason):
print(reason)
def onMessage(self, payload, isBinary):
print('A answer from another server')
class SomeClientFactory(WebSocketClientFactory):
def __init__(self, url):
WebSocketClientFactory.__init__(self,url)
self.proto = DeltaClient()
self.proto.factory = self
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
return self.proto
Tip: use a "Controller" class to manage that instances of clients inside your servers.

Python twisted: Functions are not called properly?

I've got a problem with setting up a client which connects to a "distributor" server to send certain data.
The server's purpose is to get data from the client and then send that data to it's all connected clients. The server works without any issues.
The main client is also supposed to work as an IRC bot.
Here's a text example of how it should work like:
(IRC) John: Hello there!
1. The IRC client got the message, we need to send it to the distributor now.
2. Distributor should get this "John: Hello there!" string and send it back to it's all connected clients.
3. If other clients send data to the distributor, which this will broadcast to all clients, the IRC client should output at it's turn the received data to a specified channel
The following code is the IRC bot client (ircbot.py):
import sys
import socket
import time
import traceback
from twisted.words.protocols import irc
from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.internet import protocol
VERBOSE = True
f = None
class IRCBot(irc.IRCClient):
def _get_nickname(self):
return self.factory.nickname
nickname = property(_get_nickname)
def signedOn(self):
self.msg("NickServ", "id <password_removed>") # Identify the bot
time.sleep(0.1) # Wait a little...
self.join(self.factory.channel) # Join channel #chantest
print "Signed on as %s." % (self.nickname,)
def joined(self, channel):
print "Joined %s." % (channel,)
def privmsg(self, user, channel, msg):
name = user.split('!', 1)[0]
prefix = "%s: %s" % (name, msg)
print prefix
if not user:
return
if self.nickname in msg:
msg = re.compile(self.nickname + "[:,]* ?", re.I).sub('', msg)
print msg
else:
prefix = ''
if msg.startswith("!"):
if name.lower() == "longdouble":
self.msg(channel, "Owner command") # etc just testing stuff
else:
self.msg(channel, "Command")
if channel == "#testchan" and name != "BotName":
EchoClient().sendData('IRC:'+' '.join(map(str, [name, msg])))
# This should make the bot send chat data to the distributor server (NOT IRC server)
def irc_NICK(self, prefix, params):
"""Called when an IRC user changes their nickname."""
old_nick = prefix.split('!')[0]
new_nick = params[0]
self.msg(, "%s is now known as %s" % (old_nick, new_nick))
def alterCollidedNick(self, nickname):
return nickname + '1'
class BotFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
protocol = IRCBot
def __init__(self, channel, nickname='BotName'):
self.channel = channel
self.nickname = nickname
def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
print "Lost connection (%s), reconnecting." % (reason,)
connector.connect()
def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
print "Could not connect: %s" % (reason,)
class EchoClient(protocol.Protocol):
def connectionMade(self):
pass
def sendData(self, data):
self.transport.write(data)
def dataReceived(self, data):
if VERBOSE:
print "RECV:", data
IRC.msg("#chantest", data)
#This one should send the received data from the distributor to the IRC channel
def connectionLost(self, reason):
print "Connection was lost."
class EchoFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
def startedConnecting(self, connector):
print 'Started to connect.'
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
print 'Connected to the Distributor'
return EchoClient()
def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
print "Cannot connect to distributor! Check all settings!"
reactor.stop()
def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
print "Distributor Lost connection!!"
reactor.stop()
if __name__ == "__main__":
IRC = BotFactory('#chantest')
reactor.connectTCP('irc.rizon.net', 6667, IRC) # Our IRC connection
f = EchoFactory()
reactor.connectTCP("localhost", 8000, f) # Connection to the Distributor server
reactor.run()
The following code is the distributor server (distributor.py):
(This one works fine, but maybe it could be useful for further reference)
from twisted.internet.protocol import Protocol, Factory
from twisted.internet import reactor
class MultiEcho(Protocol):
def __init__(self, factory):
self.factory = factory
def connectionMade(self):
print "Client connected:",self
self.factory.echoers.append(self)
self.factory.clients = self.factory.clients+1
#self.transport.write("Welcome to the server! There are currently "+`self.factory.clients`+" clients connected.")
def dataReceived(self, data):
print "RECV:",data
for echoer in self.factory.echoers:
echoer.transport.write(data)
def connectionLost(self, reason):
print "Client disconnected:",self
self.factory.echoers.remove(self)
self.factory.clients = self.factory.clients-1
class MultiEchoFactory(Factory):
def __init__(self):
self.clients = 0
self.names = []
self.echoers = []
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
return MultiEcho(self)
if __name__ == '__main__':
print "Running..."
reactor.listenTCP(8000, MultiEchoFactory())
reactor.run()
I want the client to output all incoming chat data from the IRC server to the "distributor" server and also output incoming data from the "distributor".
However, I get errors like this:
For the following line in ircbot.py,
EchoClient().sendData('IRC'+' '.join(map(str, [name, msg])))
I get the following error:
Joined #chantest.
Longdouble: test
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\internet\tcp.py", line 460, in doRea
d
return self.protocol.dataReceived(data)
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\words\protocols\irc.py", line 2277,
in dataReceived
basic.LineReceiver.dataReceived(self, data.replace('\r', ''))
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\protocols\basic.py", line 564, in da
taReceived
why = self.lineReceived(line)
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\words\protocols\irc.py", line 2285,
in lineReceived
self.handleCommand(command, prefix, params)
--- <exception caught here> ---
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\words\protocols\irc.py", line 2329,
in handleCommand
method(prefix, params)
File "C:\Python\lib\site-packages\twisted\words\protocols\irc.py", line 1813,
in irc_PRIVMSG
self.privmsg(user, channel, message)
File "C:\Python\Traance\kwlbot\ircbot.py", line 51, in privmsg
EchoClient().sendData('IRC'+' '.join(map(str, [name, msg])))
File "C:\Python\Traance\kwlbot\ircbot.py", line 90, in sendData
self.transport.write(data)
exceptions.AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'write'
And same goes to this line in the same ircbot.py
IRC.msg("#chantest", data)
->
RECV: Hello from Distributor Server
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python\Traance\kwlbot\ircbot.py", line 96, in dataReceived
IRC.msg("#chantest", data)
AttributeError: BotFactory instance has no attribute 'msg'
What am I doing wrong? How can I call the right function from the IRCbot class to make it send the data to the distributor server and data received from the distributor server to output in the specified channel via IRC?
Any suggestions and possible solutions are welcome.
If I missed any other details, please let me know.
Thank you for your time!

You should avoid writing blocking code like this:
def signedOn(self):
self.msg("NickServ", "id <password_removed>") # Identify the bot
time.sleep(0.1) # Wait a little...
self.join(self.factory.channel) # Join channel #chantest
print "Signed on as %s." % (self.nickname,)
For details, see Tail -f log on server, process data, then serve to client via twisted.
Apart from that, the main problem here is that you are trying to send data without having a connection. When you write something like:
EchoClient().sendData('IRC'+' '.join(map(str, [name, msg])))
you're creating a protocol instance which is responsible for handling a connection and then trying to use it, but you're not creating a connection. The attempt to send data fails because the protocol hasn't been attached to any transport.
Your snippet already demonstrates the correct way to create a connection, twice in fact:
IRC = BotFactory('#chantest')
reactor.connectTCP('irc.rizon.net', 6667, IRC) # Our IRC connection
f = EchoFactory()
reactor.connectTCP("localhost", 8000, f) # Connection to the Distributor server
The mistake is creating a new EchoClient instance, one with no connection. The reactor.connectTCP call creates a new connection and a new EchoClient instance and associates them with each other.
Instead of EchoClient().sendData(...), you want to use the EchoClient instance created by your factory:
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
print 'Connected to the Distributor'
return EchoClient()
Your buildProtocol implementation creates the instance, all that's missing is for it to save the instance so it can be used by your IRC bot.
Consider something like this:
def buildProtocol(self, addr):
print 'Connected to the Distributor'
self.connection = EchoClient()
return self.connection
Your IRC client can then use the saved EchoClient instance:
if channel == "#testchan" and name != "BotName":
f.connection.sendData('IRC:'+' '.join(map(str, [name, msg])))
# This should make the bot send chat data to the distributor server (NOT IRC server)
Note that the specific code I give here is a very crude approach. It uses the global variable f to find the EchoFactory instance. As with most global variable usage this makes the code a little hard to follow. Further, I haven't added any code to handle connectionLost events to clear the connection attribute out. This means you might think you're sending data to the distributed server when the connection has already been lost. And similarly, there's no guarantee that the connection to the distributed server will have been created by the time the IRC client first tries to use it, so you may have an AttributeError when it tries to use f.connection.sendData.
However, fixing these doesn't require much of a leap. Fix the global variable usage as you would any other - by passing arguments to functions, saving objects as references on other objects, etc. Fix the possible AttributeError by handling it, or by not creating the IRC connection until after you've created the distributed connection, etc. And handle lost connections by resetting the attribute value to None or some other sentinel, and paying attention to such a case in the IRC code before trying to use the distributed client connection to send any data.

TFM is never defined in your code, so I don't know what the deal is there.
The other error is that you're instantiating a client, but never connecting it to anything, as with reactor.connectTCP(...) or endpoint.connect(...). The transport attribute will be None until it's set by something.
(It would be helpful for you to come up with a simpler version of this code which is complete and doesn't include unnecessary details like all the printed log messages. It makes it harder to see what the real issues are.)

Testing twisted application - Load client

I've written a Twisted based server and I'd like to test it using twisted as well.
But I'd like to write a load test starting a bunch of request at the same time.
But I believe that I didn't get the concepts of Twisted, mainly client side, because I'm stucked with this problem:
from twisted.internet import reactor, protocol
from threading import Thread
from twisted.protocols.basic import LineReceiver
__author__="smota"
__date__ ="$30/10/2009 17:17:50$"
class SquitterClient(LineReceiver):
def connectionMade(self):
self.sendLine("message from " % threading.current_thread().name);
pass
def connectionLost(self, reason):
print "connection lost"
def sendMessage(self, msg):
for m in [ "a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]:
self.sendLine(msg % " - " % m);
class SquitterClientFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
protocol = SquitterClient
def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection failed - goodbye!"
reactor.stop()
def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection lost - goodbye!"
reactor.stop()
def createAndRun():
f = SquitterClientFactory()
reactor.connectTCP("localhost", 4010, f)
reactor.run(installSignalHandlers=0)
# this connects the protocol to a server runing on port 8000
def main():
for n in range(0,10):
th=Thread(target=createAndRun)
th.start()
# this only runs if the module was *not* imported
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
socket_client.py:35:
DeprecationWarning: Reactor already
running! This behavior is deprecated
since Twisted 8.0
reactor.run(installSignalHandlers=0)
What am I missing?
How to test it?
Thank you,
Samuel

The direct cause for your failure is that you attemp to call run() on the reactor multiple times. You are supposed to ever only call run() once. I think you are expecting to have multiple reactors, each in its own thread, but actually you only have one. The bad thing is that having multiple reactors is difficult or impossible - the good thing is that it's also unnecessary. In fact you don't even need multiple threads. You can multiplex multiple client connections in one reactor almost as easily as you can listen for multiple connections.
Modifying your sample code, something like the following should work. The key idea is that you don't need multiple reactors to do things concurrently. The only thing that could ever be concurrent with the regular Python implementation is I/O anyway.
from twisted.internet import reactor, protocol
from twisted.protocols.basic import LineReceiver
__author__="smota"
__date__ ="$30/10/2009 17:17:50$"
class SquitterClient(LineReceiver):
def connectionMade(self):
self.messageCount = 0
# The factory provides a reference to itself, we'll use it to enumerate the clients
self.factory.n += 1
self.name = "Client %d" %self.factory.n
# Send initial message, and more messages a bit later
self.sendLine("Client %s starting!" % self.name);
reactor.callLater(0.5, self.sendMessage, "Message %d" %self.messageCount)
def connectionLost(self, reason):
print "connection lost"
def sendMessage(self, msg):
for m in [ "a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]:
self.sendLine("Copy %s of message %s from client %s!" % (m, msg, self.name))
if self.factory.stop:
self.sendLine("Client %s disconnecting!" % self.name)
self.transport.loseConnection()
else:
self.messageCount += 1
reactor.callLater(0.5, self.sendMessage, "Message %d" %self.messageCount)
class SquitterClientFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
protocol = SquitterClient
def __init__(self):
self.n = 0
self.stop = False
def stopTest():
self.stop = True
def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection failed - goodbye!"
def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
print "Connection lost - goodbye!"
# this connects the protocol to a server running on port 8000
def main():
# Create 10 clients
f = SquitterClientFactory()
for i in range(10):
reactor.connectTCP("localhost", 8000, f)
# Schedule end of test in 10 seconds
reactor.callLater(10, f.stopTest)
# And let loose the dogs of war
reactor.run()
# this only runs if the module was *not* imported
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()