Python Wrapper

Table of Contents

• Python Wrapper Prerequisites
  • RF24
  • Python2
  • Python3
• Installation

By mz-fuzzy

Python Wrapper Prerequisites

RF24

The RF24 lib needs to be built in C++ & installed for the python wrapper to wrap it.

See Linux Installation (or installing with CMake alternatively) and Linux/RPi General

Python2

sudo apt-get install python-dev libboost-python-dev python-pip python-rpi.gpio

Next, install some up-to-date python packages.

python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools

Python3

sudo apt-get install python3-dev libboost-python-dev python3-pip python3-rpi.gpio

Next, install some up-to-date python3 packages.

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools

Installation

Note

Steps 2 and 3 have to be repeated if installing the python wrappers for RF24Network and RF24Mesh libraries. The prerequisites stated above still apply to each library.

1. For python3, setup.py needs a manually created symlink for the boost.python library:

   sudo ln -s $(ls /usr/lib/$(ls /usr/lib/gcc | tail -1)/libboost_python3*.so | tail -1) /usr/lib/$(ls /usr/lib/gcc | tail -1)/libboost_python3.so

2. Build the library.

   This step and the next step need to be executed from the appropriate directory of the cloned RF24* repository:

   • navigate to pyRF24 directory in the RF24 cloned repository
   • navigate to RPi/pyRF24Network directory in the RF24Network cloned repository
   • navigate to pyRF24Mesh directory in the RF24Mesh cloned repository

   When in the correct directory, run the following command:

   ./setup.py build

   or for python3

   python3 setup.py build

   Note

   Build takes several minutes on arm-based machines. Machines with RAM less than 1GB may need to increase amount of swap for build.

3. Install the library

   sudo ./setup.py install

   or for python3

   sudo python3 setup.py install

   See the additional Platform Support pages for information on connecting your hardware.

   See the included *.py files in the "examples_linux" folder for usage information.

4. Running the Example

   The python examples location differ for each RF24* resopitories.

   • navigate to examples_linux directory in the RF24 cloned repository
   • navigate to RPi/pyRF24Network/examples directory in the RF24Network cloned repository
   • navigate to examples_RPi directory in the RF24Mesh cloned repository

   Navigate to the examples_linux directory

   cd ../examples_linux

   Edit the getting_started.py example to configure the appropriate pins per the Linux/RPi General documentation.

   nano getting_started.py

   Configure another device, Arduino or RPi with the same example code. It could be C++ or python (see the list of available examples), but we'll use the same example file on a different device in this tutorial.

   Run the example

   sudo python getting_started.py

   or for python3

   sudo python3 getting_started.py