path: root/docs/library/usocket.rst

*******************************
:mod:`usocket` -- socket module
*******************************

.. module:: usocket
   :synopsis: socket module

This module provides access to the BSD socket interface.

See the corresponding `CPython module <https://docs.python.org/3/library/socket.html>`_
for comparison.

.. admonition:: Difference to CPython
   :class: attention

   CPython used to have a ``socket.error`` exception which is now deprecated,
   and is an alias of OSError. In MicroPython, use OSError directly.

.. admonition:: Difference to CPython
   :class: attention

   For efficiency and consistency, socket objects in MicroPython implement a stream
   (file-like) interface directly. In CPython, you need to convert a socket to
   a file-like object using ``makefile()`` method. This method is still supported
   by MicroPython (but is a no-op), so where compatibility with CPython matters,
   be sure to use it.

Socket address format(s)
------------------------

The functions below which expect a network address, accept it in the format of
`(ipv4_address, port)`, where `ipv4_address` is a string with dot-notation numeric
IPv4 address, e.g. ``"8.8.8.8"``, and port is integer port number in the range
1-65535. Note the domain names are not accepted as `ipv4_address`, they should be
resolved first using ``socket.getaddrinfo()``.

Functions
---------

.. function:: socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM, socket.IPPROTO_TCP)

   Create a new socket using the given address family, socket type and protocol number.

.. function:: socket.getaddrinfo(host, port)

   Translate the host/port argument into a sequence of 5-tuples that contain all the 
   necessary arguments for creating a socket connected to that service. The list of 
   5-tuples has following structure::

      (family, type, proto, canonname, sockaddr)

   The following example shows how to connect to a given url::

      s = socket.socket()
      s.connect(socket.getaddrinfo('www.micropython.org', 80)[0][-1])

   .. admonition:: Difference to CPython
      :class: attention

      CPython raises a ``socket.gaierror`` exception (OSError subclass) in case
      of error in this function. MicroPython doesn't have ``socket.gaierror``
      and raises OSError directly. Note that error numbers of ``getaddrinfo()``
      form a separate namespace and may not match error numbers from
      ``uerrno`` module. To distinguish ``getaddrinfo()`` errors, they are
      represented by negative numbers, whereas standard system errors are
      positive numbers (error numbers are accessible using ``e.args[0]`` property
      from an exception object). The use of negative values is a provisional
      detail which may change in the future.

Constants
---------

.. data:: socket.AF_INET
          socket.AF_INET6

   Address family types. Availability depends on a particular board.

.. data:: socket.SOCK_STREAM
          socket.SOCK_DGRAM

   Socket types.

.. data:: socket.IPPROTO_UDP
          socket.IPPROTO_TCP

   IP protocol numbers.

.. data:: socket.SOL_*

   Socket option levels (an argument to ``setsockopt()``). The exact inventory depends on a board.

.. data:: socket.SO_*

   Socket options (an argument to ``setsockopt()``). The exact inventory depends on a board.

Constants specific to WiPy:

.. data:: socket.IPPROTO_SEC

    Special protocol value to create SSL-compatible socket.

class socket
============

Methods
-------

.. method:: socket.close

   Mark the socket closed. Once that happens, all future operations on the socket 
   object will fail. The remote end will receive no more data (after queued data is flushed).

   Sockets are automatically closed when they are garbage-collected, but it is recommended 
   to close() them explicitly, or to use a with statement around them.

.. method:: socket.bind(address)

   Bind the socket to address. The socket must not already be bound.

.. method:: socket.listen([backlog])

   Enable a server to accept connections. If backlog is specified, it must be at least 0 
   (if it's lower, it will be set to 0); and specifies the number of unaccepted connections
   that the system will allow before refusing new connections. If not specified, a default
   reasonable value is chosen.

.. method:: socket.accept()

   Accept a connection. The socket must be bound to an address and listening for connections.
   The return value is a pair (conn, address) where conn is a new socket object usable to send
   and receive data on the connection, and address is the address bound to the socket on the
   other end of the connection.

.. method:: socket.connect(address)

   Connect to a remote socket at address.

.. method:: socket.send(bytes)

   Send data to the socket. The socket must be connected to a remote socket.
   Returns number of bytes sent, which may be smaller than the length of data
   ("short write").

.. method:: socket.sendall(bytes)

   Send all data to the socket. The socket must be connected to a remote socket.
   Unlike ``send()``, this method will try to send all of data, by sending data
   chunk by chunk consecutively.

   The behavior of this method on non-blocking sockets is undefined. Due to this,
   on MicroPython, it's recommended to use ``write()`` method instead, which
   has the same "no short writes" policy for blocking sockets, and will return
   number of bytes sent on non-blocking sockets.

.. method:: socket.recv(bufsize)

   Receive data from the socket. The return value is a bytes object representing the data
   received. The maximum amount of data to be received at once is specified by bufsize.

.. method:: socket.sendto(bytes, address)

   Send data to the socket. The socket should not be connected to a remote socket, since the
   destination socket is specified by `address`.

.. method:: socket.recvfrom(bufsize)

  Receive data from the socket. The return value is a pair (bytes, address) where bytes is a
  bytes object representing the data received and address is the address of the socket sending
  the data.

.. method:: socket.setsockopt(level, optname, value)

   Set the value of the given socket option. The needed symbolic constants are defined in the
   socket module (SO_* etc.). The value can be an integer or a bytes-like object representing
   a buffer.

.. method:: socket.settimeout(value)

   Set a timeout on blocking socket operations. The value argument can be a nonnegative floating
   point number expressing seconds, or None. If a non-zero value is given, subsequent socket operations
   will raise an ``OSError`` exception if the timeout period value has elapsed before the operation has
   completed. If zero is given, the socket is put in non-blocking mode. If None is given, the socket
   is put in blocking mode.

   .. admonition:: Difference to CPython
      :class: attention

      CPython raises a ``socket.timeout`` exception in case of timeout,
      which is an ``OSError`` subclass. MicroPython raises an OSError directly
      instead. If you use ``except OSError:`` to catch the exception,
      your code will work both in MicroPython and CPython.

.. method:: socket.setblocking(flag)

   Set blocking or non-blocking mode of the socket: if flag is false, the socket is set to non-blocking,
   else to blocking mode.

   This method is a shorthand for certain ``settimeout()`` calls:

   * ``sock.setblocking(True)`` is equivalent to ``sock.settimeout(None)``
   * ``sock.setblocking(False)`` is equivalent to ``sock.settimeout(0)``

.. method:: socket.makefile(mode='rb', buffering=0)

   Return a file object associated with the socket. The exact returned type depends on the arguments
   given to makefile(). The support is limited to binary modes only ('rb', 'wb', and 'rwb').
   CPython's arguments: ``encoding``, ``errors`` and ``newline`` are not supported.

   .. admonition:: Difference to CPython
      :class: attention

      As MicroPython doesn't support buffered streams, values of ``buffering``
      parameter is ignored and treated as if it was 0 (unbuffered).

   .. admonition:: Difference to CPython
      :class: attention

      Closing the file object returned by makefile() WILL close the
      original socket as well.

.. method:: socket.read([size])

   Read up to size bytes from the socket. Return a bytes object. If ``size`` is not given, it
   reads all data available from the socket until ``EOF``; as such the method will not return until
   the socket is closed. This function tries to read as much data as
   requested (no "short reads"). This may be not possible with
   non-blocking socket though, and then less data will be returned.

.. method:: socket.readinto(buf[, nbytes])

   Read bytes into the ``buf``.  If ``nbytes`` is specified then read at most
   that many bytes.  Otherwise, read at most ``len(buf)`` bytes. Just as
   ``read()``, this method follows "no short reads" policy.

   Return value: number of bytes read and stored into ``buf``.

.. method:: socket.readline()

   Read a line, ending in a newline character.

   Return value: the line read.

.. method:: socket.write(buf)

   Write the buffer of bytes to the socket. This function will try to
   write all data to a socket (no "short writes"). This may be not possible
   with a non-blocking socket though, and returned value will be less than
   the length of ``buf``.

   Return value: number of bytes written.