.. contents::

Pure-python wrapper for libusb-1.0

Supports all transfer types, both in synchronous and asynchronous mode.

Home: http://github.com/vpelletier/python-libusb1

PyPI: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/libusb1

.. role:: c_code(code) :language: c

.. role:: python_code(code) :language: python

Dependencies

CPython_ 2.7+ or 3.4+, pypy_ 2.0+. Older versions may work, but are not recommended as there is no automated regression testing set up for them.
libusb-1.0_ or libusbx_

Supported OSes

python-libusb1 can be expected to work on:

GNU/Linux
Windows native dll or via Cygwin_
OSX via MacPorts, Fink or Homebrew_
FreeBSD (including Debian GNU/kFreeBSD)
OpenBSD

.. Beware of libusb-win32, which implements 0.1 API, not 1.0 .

.. Beware of possible lack of select.poll if you want to use asynchronous API.

Installation

Releases from PyPI, with name libusb1. Installing from command line::

$ pip install libusb1

or::

$ easy_install libusb1

Latest version from source tree::

$ git clone https://github.com/vpelletier/python-libusb1.git
$ cd python-libusb1
$ python setup.py install

Usage

Finding a device and gaining exclusive access:

.. code:: python

import usb1
with usb1.USBContext() as context:
    handle = context.openByVendorIDAndProductID(
        VENDOR_ID,
        PRODUCT_ID,
        skip_on_error=True,
    )
    if handle is None:
        # Device not present, or user is not allowed to access device.
    with handle.claimInterface(INTERFACE):
        # Do stuff with endpoints on claimed interface.

Synchronous I/O:

.. code:: python

while True:
    data = handle.bulkRead(ENDPOINT, BUFFER_SIZE)
    # Process data...

Asynchronous I/O, with more error handling:

.. code:: python

def processReceivedData(transfer):
    if transfer.getStatus() != usb1.TRANSFER_COMPLETED:
        # Transfer did not complete successfully, there is no data to read.
        # This example does not resubmit transfers      # Resubmit transfer once data is processed.
    transfer.submit()

# Build a list of transfer objects and submit them to prime the pump.
transfer_list = []
for _ in xrange(TRANSFER_COUNT):
    transfer = handle.getTransfer()
    transfer.setBulk(
        usb1.ENDPOINT_IN | ENDPOINT,
        BUFFER_SIZE,
        callback=processReceivedData,
    )
    transfer.submit()
    transfer_list.append(transfer)
# Loop as long as there is at least one submitted transfer.
while any(x.isSubmitted() for x in reader_list):
    try:
        context.handleEvents()
    except usb1.USBErrorInterrupted:
        pass

For more, see the example directory.

Documentation

python-libusb1 main documentation is accessible with python's standard pydoc command.

python-libusb1 follows libusb-1.0 documentation as closely as possible, without taking decisions for you. Thanks to this, python-libusb1 does not need to duplicate the nice existing libusb1.0 documentation_.

Some description is needed though on how to jump from libusb-1.0 documentation to python-libusb1, and vice-versa:

usb1 module groups libusb-1.0 functions as class methods. The first parameter (when it's a libusb_... pointer) defined the class the fonction belongs to. For example:

:ccode:int libusb_init (libusb_context **context) becomes USBContext class constructor, :pythoncode:USBContext.__init__(self)
:ccode:ssize_t libusb_get_device_list (libusb_context *ctx, libusb_device ***list) becomes an USBContext method, returning a list of USBDevice instances, :pythoncode:USBDevice.getDeviceList(self)
:ccode:uint8_t libusb_get_bus_number (libusb_device *dev) becomes an USBDevice method, :pythoncode:USBDevice.getBusNumber(self)

Error statuses are converted into :python_code:usb1.USBError exceptions, with status as value instance property.

usb1 module also defines a few more functions and classes, which are otherwise not so convenient to call from Python: the event handling API needed by async API.

History

0.0.1

Initial release

0.1.1

Massive rework of usb1.py, making it more python-ish and fixing some memory leaks.

0.1.2

Deprecate "transfer" constructor parameter to allow instance reuse.

0.1.3

Some work on isochronous "in" transfers. They don't raise exceptions anymore, but data validity and python-induced latency impact weren't properly checked.

0.2.0

Fix asynchronous configuration transfers.

Stand-alone polling thread for multi-threaded apps.

More libusb methods exposed on objects, including ones not yet part of released libusb versions (up to their commit 4630fc2).

2to3 friendly.

Drop deprecated USBDevice.reprConfigurations method.

0.2.1

Add FreeBSD support.

0.2.2

Add Cygwin support.

OpenBSD support checked (no change).

0.2.3

Add fink and homebrew support on OSX.

Drop PATH_MAX definition.

Try harder when looking for libusb.

1.0.0

Fix FreeBSD ABI compatibility.

Easier to list connected devices.

Easier to terminate all async transfers for clean exit.

Fix few segfault causes.

pypy support.

1.1.0

Descriptor walk API documented.

Version and capability APIs exposed.

Some portability fixes (OSes, python versions).

Isochronous transfer refuses to round transfer size.

Better exception handling in enumeration.

Add examples.

Better documentation.

1.2.0

Wrap hotplug API.

Wrap port number API.

Wrap kernel auto-detach API.

Drop wrapper for libusb_strerror, with compatibility place-holder.

Add a few new upstream enum values.

1.3.0

Backward-incompatible change: Enum class now affects caller's local scope, not its global scope. This should not be of much importance, as:

This class is probably very little used outside libusb1.py
This class is probably mostly used at module level, where locals == globals.

It is possible to get former behaviour by providing the new scope_dict parameter to Enum constructor::

SOMEENUM = libusb1.Enum({...}, scopedict=globals())

Improve start-up time on CPython by not importing standard inspect module.

Fix some more USBTransfer memory leaks.

Add Transfer.iterISO for more efficient isochronous reception.

1.3.1

Fixed USBContext.waitForEvent.

Fix typo in USBInterfaceSetting.getClassTuple method name. Backward compatibility preserved.

Remove globals accesses from USBDeviceHandle destructor.

Assorted documentation improvements.

1.3.2

Made USBDevice instances hashable.

Relaxed licensing by moving from GPL v2+ to LGPL v2.1+, for consistency with libusb1.

1.4.0

Reduce (remove ?) the need to import libusb1 module by exposing USBError and constants in usb1 module.

Fix libusb1.LIBUSBENDPOINTENDPOINTMASK and libusb1.LIBUSBENDPOINTDIRMASK naming.

Fix pydoc appearance of several USBContext methods.

Define exception classes for each error values.

1.4.1

Fix wheel generation (python3 setup.py bdist_wheel).

1.5.0

controlWrite, bulkWrite and interruptWrite now reject (with TypeError) numeric values for data parameter.

Fix libusb1.REQUESTTYPE* names (were TYPE_*). Preserve backward compatibility.

Add USBContext.getDeviceIterator method.

Rename USBContext.exit as USBContext.close for consistency with other USB* classes. Preserve backward compatibility.

Make USBDeviceHandle.claimInterface a context manager, for easier interface releasing.

1.5.1

Introduce USBPollerThread.stop .

Fix USBDeviceHandle.getSupportedLanguageList bug when running under python 3. While fixing this bug it was realised that this method returned ctypes objects. This was not intended, and it now returns regular integers.

1.5.2

Make USBTransfer.cancel raise specific error instances.

1.5.3

Fix USBTransfer.cancel exception raising introduced in 1.5.2: it was accidentally becomming a bound method, preventing the raise to actually happen (in at least CPython 2.x) or raising type conversion errors (in at least CPython 3.5.2).

1.6

Improve asynchronous transfer performance: (very) suboptimal code was used to initialise asynchronous transfer buffer. As a consequence, usb1 now exposes bytearrays where it used to expose bytes or str objects.

Deprecate libusb1 module import, which should not be needed since all (?) needed constants were re-bound to usb1 module.

Move testUSB1 module inside usb1, to eventually only expose usb1 as top-level module.

1.6.1

Fix getSupportedLanguageList.

Fix and extend get{,ASCII}StringDescriptor .

Fix iterISO and getISOBufferList.

1.6.2

Fix getASCIIStringDescriptor: unlike getStringDescriptor, this returns only the payload of the string descriptor, without its header.

1.6.3

Deprecate USBPollerThread . It is mileading users for which the simple version (a thread calling USBContext.handleEvents) would be enough. And for more advanced uses (ie, actually needing to poll non-libusb file descriptors), this class only works reliably with epoll: kqueue (which should tehcnically work) has a different API on python level, and poll (which has the same API as epoll on python level) lacks the critical ability to change the set of monitored file descriptors while a poll is already running, causing long pauses - if not deadlocks.

1.6.4

Fix asynchronous control transfers.

.. _CPython: http://www.python.org/

.. _pypy: http://pypy.org/

.. _Cygwin: https://www.cygwin.com/

.. _MacPorts: https://www.macports.org/

.. _Fink: http://www.finkproject.org/

.. _Homebrew: http://brew.sh/

.. _libusb-1.0: http://www.libusb.org/wiki/libusb-1.0

.. _libusbx: http://libusb.info/

.. _libusb1.0 documentation: http://libusb.org/static/api-1.0/