socketserver TCP and UDP and synchronous

20.17.4.1. SocketServer.TCPServer Example

This is the server side:

import SocketServer

class MyTCPHandler(SocketServer.BaseRequestHandler):
    """
    The RequestHandler class for our server.

    It is instantiated once per connection to the server, and must
    override the handle() method to implement communication to the
    client.
    """

    def handle(self):
        # self.request is the TCP socket connected to the client
        self.data = self.request.recv(1024).strip()
        print "{} wrote:".format(self.client_address[0])
        print self.data
        # just send back the same data, but upper-cased
        self.request.sendall(self.data.upper())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    HOST, PORT = "localhost", 9999

    # Create the server, binding to localhost on port 9999
    server = SocketServer.TCPServer((HOST, PORT), MyTCPHandler)

    # Activate the server; this will keep running until you
    # interrupt the program with Ctrl-C
    server.serve_forever()

An alternative request handler class that makes use of streams (file-like objects that simplify communication by providing the standard file interface):

class MyTCPHandler(SocketServer.StreamRequestHandler):

    def handle(self):
        # self.rfile is a file-like object created by the handler;
        # we can now use e.g. readline() instead of raw recv() calls
        self.data = self.rfile.readline().strip()
        print "{} wrote:".format(self.client_address[0])
        print self.data
        # Likewise, self.wfile is a file-like object used to write back
        # to the client
        self.wfile.write(self.data.upper())

The difference is that the readline() call in the second handler will call recv() multiple times until it encounters a newline character, while the single recv() call in the first handler will just return what has been sent from the client in onesendall() call.

This is the client side:

import socket
import sys

HOST, PORT = "localhost", 9999
data = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])

# Create a socket (SOCK_STREAM means a TCP socket)
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)

try:
    # Connect to server and send data
    sock.connect((HOST, PORT))
    sock.sendall(data + "\n")

    # Receive data from the server and shut down
    received = sock.recv(1024)
finally:
    sock.close()

print "Sent:     {}".format(data)
print "Received: {}".format(received)

The output of the example should look something like this:

Server:

$ python TCPServer.py
127.0.0.1 wrote:
hello world with TCP
127.0.0.1 wrote:
python is nice

Client:

$ python TCPClient.py hello world with TCP
Sent:     hello world with TCP
Received: HELLO WORLD WITH TCP
$ python TCPClient.py python is nice
Sent:     python is nice
Received: PYTHON IS NICE

20.17.4.2. SocketServer.UDPServer Example

This is the server side:

import SocketServer

class MyUDPHandler(SocketServer.BaseRequestHandler):
    """
    This class works similar to the TCP handler class, except that
    self.request consists of a pair of data and client socket, and since
    there is no connection the client address must be given explicitly
    when sending data back via sendto().
    """

    def handle(self):
        data = self.request[0].strip()
        socket = self.request[1]
        print "{} wrote:".format(self.client_address[0])
        print data
        socket.sendto(data.upper(), self.client_address)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    HOST, PORT = "localhost", 9999
    server = SocketServer.UDPServer((HOST, PORT), MyUDPHandler)
    server.serve_forever()

This is the client side:

import socket
import sys

HOST, PORT = "localhost", 9999
data = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])

# SOCK_DGRAM is the socket type to use for UDP sockets
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)

# As you can see, there is no connect() call; UDP has no connections.
# Instead, data is directly sent to the recipient via sendto().
sock.sendto(data + "\n", (HOST, PORT))
received = sock.recv(1024)

print "Sent:     {}".format(data)
print "Received: {}".format(received)

The output of the example should look exactly like for the TCP server example.

20.17.4.3. Asynchronous Mixins

To build asynchronous handlers, use the ThreadingMixIn and ForkingMixIn classes.

An example for the ThreadingMixIn class:

import socket
import threading
import SocketServer

class ThreadedTCPRequestHandler(SocketServer.BaseRequestHandler):

    def handle(self):
        data = self.request.recv(1024)
        cur_thread = threading.current_thread()
        response = "{}: {}".format(cur_thread.name, data)
        self.request.sendall(response)

class ThreadedTCPServer(SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn, SocketServer.TCPServer):
    pass

def client(ip, port, message):
    sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    sock.connect((ip, port))
    try:
        sock.sendall(message)
        response = sock.recv(1024)
        print "Received: {}".format(response)
    finally:
        sock.close()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Port 0 means to select an arbitrary unused port
    HOST, PORT = "localhost", 0

    server = ThreadedTCPServer((HOST, PORT), ThreadedTCPRequestHandler)
    ip, port = server.server_address

    # Start a thread with the server -- that thread will then start one
    # more thread for each request
    server_thread = threading.Thread(target=server.serve_forever)
    # Exit the server thread when the main thread terminates
    server_thread.daemon = True
    server_thread.start()
    print "Server loop running in thread:", server_thread.name

    client(ip, port, "Hello World 1")
    client(ip, port, "Hello World 2")
    client(ip, port, "Hello World 3")

    server.shutdown()

The output of the example should look something like this:

$ python ThreadedTCPServer.py
Server loop running in thread: Thread-1
Received: Thread-2: Hello World 1
Received: Thread-3: Hello World 2
Received: Thread-4: Hello World 3