This documentation is very similar to the header in OSC.py. One day both should be merged and placed either in this file or in OSC.py to avoid diverging documentation.
This module contains an OpenSoundControl implementation (in Pure Python), based (somewhat) on the good old 'SimpleOSC' implementation by Daniel Holth & Clinton McChesney.
This implementation is intended to still be 'Simple' to the user, but much more complete (with OSCServer & OSCClient classes) and much more powerful (the OSCMultiClient supports subscriptions & message-filtering, OSCMessage & OSCBundle are now proper container-types)
OpenSoundControl is a network-protocol for sending (small) packets of addressed data over network sockets. The original OSC-implementation uses the UDP/IP protocol for sending and receiving packets.
In early 2010 TCP was added as transport layer. The application of OSC as interprocess communication becomes more and more common and ask for increased reliability which can be accomodated by using TCP as transport. The OSC specifications 1.0 and 1.1 require that OSC data (messages and bundles) must be framed by their packet size as 32 bit integer in network byte order (which is big endian) when using streaming protocols. This new implementation provides server and client classes. Their use is illustrated in the testbench.
OSC-packets come in two kinds:
- OSC-messages consist of an 'address'-string (not to be confused with a (host:port) network-address!), followed by a string of 'typetags' associated with the message's arguments (ie. 'payload'), and finally the arguments themselves, encoded in an OSC-specific way. The OSCMessage class makes it easy to create & manipulate OSC-messages of this kind in a 'pythonesque' way (that is, OSCMessage-objects behave a lot like lists)
- OSC-bundles are a special type of OSC-message containing only OSC-messages as 'payload'. Recursively. (meaning; an OSC-bundle could contain other OSC-bundles, containing OSC-bundles etc.) OSC-bundles start with the special keyword '#bundle' and do not have an OSC-address. (but the OSC-messages a bundle contains will have OSC-addresses!) Also, an OSC-bundle can have a timetag, essentially telling the receiving Server to 'hold' the bundle until the specified time. The OSCBundle class allows easy cration & manipulation of OSC-bundles.
see also http://opensoundcontrol.org/spec-1_0
To send OSC-messages, you need an OSCClient, and to receive OSC-messages you need an OSCServer.
The OSCClient uses an AF_INET / SOCK_DGRAM type socket (see the socket module) to send binary representations of OSC-messages to a remote host:port address.
The OSCServer listens on an AF_INET / SOCK_DGRAM type socket bound to a local port, and handles incoming requests. Either one-after-the-other (OSCServer) or in a multi-threaded / multi-process fashion (ThreadingOSCServer / ForkingOSCServer). If the Server has a callback-function (a.k.a. handler) registered to 'deal with' (i.e. handle) the received message's OSC-address, that function is called, passing it the (decoded) message
The different OSC servers implemented here all support the (recursive) un-bundling of OSC-bundles, and OSC-bundle timetags.
In fact, this implementation supports:
- OSC-messages with
i(int32),f(float32),s(string) andb(blob / binary data) types - OSC-bundles, including timetag-support
- OSC-address patterns including
*,?,{,}and[]wildcards.
(please do read the OSC-spec! http://opensoundcontrol.org/spec-1_0 it explains what these things mean.)
In addition, the OSCMultiClient supports:
- Sending a specific OSC-message to multiple remote servers
- Remote server subscription / unsubscription (through OSC-messages, of course)
- Message-address filtering.
The streaming server and clients use SOCK_STREAM sockets. Since this protocol is connection oriented replies are usually sent to the peer and not to a random server/client as in UDP implementations. If one likes to send messages to other clients/servers, a separate connection has to be established.
Stock, V2_Lab, Rotterdam, 2008
v0.3.0 - 27 Dec. 2007 Started out to extend the 'SimpleOSC' implementation (v0.2.3) by Daniel Holth & Clinton McChesney. Rewrote OSCMessage Added OSCBundle
v0.3.1 - 3 Jan. 2008 Added OSClient Added OSCRequestHandler, loosely based on the original CallbackManager Added OSCServer Removed original CallbackManager Adapted testing-script (the 'if name == "main":' block at the end) to use new Server & Client
v0.3.2 - 5 Jan. 2008 Added 'container-type emulation' methods (getitem(), setitem(), iter() & friends) to OSCMessage Added ThreadingOSCServer & ForkingOSCServer - 6 Jan. 2008 Added OSCMultiClient Added command-line options to testing-script (try 'python OSC.py --help')
v0.3.3 - 9 Jan. 2008 Added OSC-timetag support to OSCBundle & OSCRequestHandler Added ThreadingOSCRequestHandler
v0.3.4 - 13 Jan. 2008 Added message-filtering to OSCMultiClient Added subscription-handler to OSCServer Added support fon numpy/scipy int & float types. (these get converted to 'standard' 32-bit OSC ints / floats!) Cleaned-up and added more Docstrings
v0.3.5 - 14 aug. 2008 Added OSCServer.reportErr(...) method
v0.3.6 - 19 April 2010 Added Streaming support (OSC over TCP) Updated documentation Moved pattern matching stuff into separate class (OSCAddressSpace) to facilitate implementation of different server and client architectures. Moved testing code into separate testbench (testbench.py)
Open SoundControl for Python
Copyright (C) 2002 Daniel Holth, Clinton McChesney
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
For questions regarding this module contact Daniel Holth dholth@stetson.edu or visit http://www.stetson.edu/~ProctoLogic/
Changelog:
15 Nov. 2001: Removed dependency on Python 2.0 features. - dwh
13 Feb. 2002: Added a generic callback handler. - dwh
To install, simply run
$ sudo ./setup.py install
and provide your password. That's it. After this, you can use the 'pyOSC' module in your python scripts by doing
import OSC
To get help, run
$ pydoc OSC
or, from within a python interpreter
import OSC
help(OSC)
This package contains an OSC testing program (testbench.py). Please have a good look at the source for this program for an example on how to use this module.
To get help on how to invoke the test-program, run
$ python testbench.py --help
Usage: testbench.py [options]
testbench.py OpenSoundControl-for-Python Test Program
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-l LISTEN, --listen=LISTEN listen on given host[:port]. default = '0.0.0.0:2222'
-s SENDTO, --sendto=SENDTO send to given host[:port]. default = '127.0.0.1:2222'
-t, --threading Test ThreadingOSCServer
-f, --forking Test ForkingOSCServer
-u, --usage Show this help message and exit
-c, --streaming Test streaming OSC (OSC over TCP)