connextdds-py

A full Python binding for RTI Connext DDS using pybind11

Documentation

The Connext DDS Python API Reference provides getting started instructions, additional examples, an API overview and an API reference.

Hello World Example

import rti.connextdds as dds
import time

participant = dds.DomainParticipant(0)
topic = dds.StringTopicType.Topic(participant, 'example')
writer = dds.StringTopicType.DataWriter(participant.implicit_publisher, topic)

while True:
    writer.write("Hello World!")
    time.sleep(1)

Feature highlights

• Python-friendly design built on the Modern C++ API.
• Supports DynamicData and the built-in types.
• Supports DDS Entities in code and in XML.
• Supports QoS Policies in code and in XML.
• Supports Content Filters with the ability to change the filter.
• Supports the built-in discovery Topics.
• Supports all status updates.
• Supports listeners, WaitSets and all Conditions
• Supports RTI Distributed Logger and integration with Python logging module
• Supports pluggable RTI components, such as Monitoring and DDS Secure.

Requirements

• Windows (requires Visual Studio 2015 or newer), macOS, and Linux
• Python 2.7, Python 3.x with pip
• RTI Connext DDS 5.3.1, 6.0.0, 6.0.1, 6.1.0
• patchelf (Python 2.7.x on Linux)

Configuration

Before building/installing connextdds-py, it is necessary to run the configuration.py script.

$ python configure.py [options...] platform

Where "platform" specifies the RTI architecture/platform string and the options are specified in the following table.

Short Option	Long Option	Description
-n NDDSHOME	--nddshome NDDSHOME	NDDSHOME directory. Defaults to NDDSHOME environment variable
-j JOBS	--jobs JOBS	Number of concurrent build jobs/processes
-t	--tcp	Add the TCP transport plugin
-m	--monitoring	Add the RTI Monitoring plugin
-s	--secure	Add the RTI DDS Secure plugin + openssl libraries
-p PLUGIN	--plugin PLUGIN	Add a user-defined plugin. This option can be specified multiple times
-o OPENSSL	--openssl OPENSSL	Location of openssl libraries (defaults to platform library location under NDDSHOME)
-r DIR	--python-root DIR	Root directory of Python (prefers 3.x over 2.x if both are under root)
-c FILE	--cmake-toolchain FILE	CMake toolchain file to use when cross compiling
-d	--debug	Use debug libraries and build debug modules for connext-py
-h	--help	show help message and exit

Installation

Clone repo and cd to the project root

$ git clone https://github.com/rticommunity/connextdds-py.git
$ cd connextdds-py

Run configuration script:

$ python configure.py [options...] <platform>

Build and install

$ pip install .

Building for development

To build for development, you must have the wheel package installed. You also need all of the enviornment variables that you need for the regular install. If you already have an install of any form, run pip3 uninstall rti -y

$ pip3 install wheel
$ pip3 install setuptools
$ pip3 install cmake
$ pip3 install patchelf-wrapper # Linux builds only
$ pip3 install delocate         # macOS builds only
$ pip3 install pybind11==2.7.1
$ python3 setup.py bdist_wheel
$ pip3 install dist/*

Running the tests

To run the tests, first install pytest using pip.

$ pytest test/

If you want to run the performance test, you can run

$ python3 test/python/perf.py

You can add a number after it to indicate how many times to run it. You can also add either the -ind flag or the -all flag to choose which test you want to run. If you omit the flags, both will be executed.

Building and viewing the documentation

To build the documentation, run

$ cd docs
$ make html

You must have the development build built and installed for this to work. To view the documentation, open in your web browser the file located at docs/build/html/index.html