Question

I’m kind of lost on how to approach this problem, I’d like to write a GUI ideally using Tkinter with python, but I initially started with Qt and found that the problem extends either with all GUI frameworks or my limited understanding.

The data in this case is coming from a named pipe, and I’d like to display whatever comes through the pipe into a textbox. I’ve tried having one thread listen on the pipe and another create the GUI, but in both cases one thread always seems to hang or the GUI never gets created.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Here is the way I would do it (on windows):

import wx, wx.lib.newevent, threading
import win32event, win32pipe, win32file, pywintypes, winerror


NewMessage, EVT_NEW_MESSAGE = wx.lib.newevent.NewEvent()
class MessageNotifier(threading.Thread):
    pipe_name = r"\\.\pipe\named_pipe_demo"

    def __init__(self, frame):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.frame = frame

    def run(self):
        open_mode = win32pipe.PIPE_ACCESS_DUPLEX | win32file.FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED
        pipe_mode = win32pipe.PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE

        sa = pywintypes.SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES()
        sa.SetSecurityDescriptorDacl(1, None, 0)

        pipe_handle = win32pipe.CreateNamedPipe(
            self.pipe_name, open_mode, pipe_mode,
            win32pipe.PIPE_UNLIMITED_INSTANCES,
            0, 0, 6000, sa
        )

        overlapped = pywintypes.OVERLAPPED()
        overlapped.hEvent = win32event.CreateEvent(None, 0, 0, None)

        while 1:
            try:
                hr = win32pipe.ConnectNamedPipe(pipe_handle, overlapped)
            except:
                # Error connecting pipe
                pipe_handle.Close()
                break

            if hr == winerror.ERROR_PIPE_CONNECTED:
                # Client is fast, and already connected - signal event
                win32event.SetEvent(overlapped.hEvent)

            rc = win32event.WaitForSingleObject(
                overlapped.hEvent, win32event.INFINITE
            )

            if rc == win32event.WAIT_OBJECT_0:
                try:
                    hr, data = win32file.ReadFile(pipe_handle, 64)
                    win32file.WriteFile(pipe_handle, "ok")
                    win32pipe.DisconnectNamedPipe(pipe_handle)
                    wx.PostEvent(self.frame, NewMessage(data=data))
                except win32file.error:
                    continue


class Messages(wx.Frame):
    def __init__(self):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, None)
        self.messages = wx.TextCtrl(self, style=wx.TE_MULTILINE | wx.TE_READONLY)
        self.Bind(EVT_NEW_MESSAGE, self.On_Update)

    def On_Update(self, event):
        self.messages.Value += "\n" + event.data


app = wx.PySimpleApp()
app.TopWindow = Messages()
app.TopWindow.Show()
MessageNotifier(app.TopWindow).start()
app.MainLoop()

Test it by sending some data with:

import win32pipe

print win32pipe.CallNamedPipe(r"\\.\pipe\named_pipe_demo", "Hello", 64, 0)

(you also get a response in this case)