/jython-demo-client

A simple demo client for DialogOS, written in Jython

Primary LanguagePython

DialogOS Client in Jython

This repository illustrates how to implement a client for DialogOS in Jython. This allows developers who are more proficient in Python than in Java to also implement DialogOS clients.

The client is extremely basic: It simply outputs whatever string is sent to it from DialogOS to the console. To see how to send values back to DialogOS, check the documentation on clients in the DialogOS Wiki and the Echo Client.

Running the client

To run the client, you will need the following:

  • An up-to-date version of Jython; at the time of writing, this is 2.7.0. This document assumes that jython is in your PATH, so you can simply call it as jython on the command line. Otherwise, replace jython below with its absolute pathname.
  • The DialogOS client library. See the Clients page on the DialogOS Wiki (under "Direct Download") for details on downloading the client library. This document assumes that you save the file as ClientInterface-2.0.4.jar in your current directory; you can also put it somewhere else, and will then have to adjust the paths below as needed.

Run the client as follows:

jython -Dpython.path=ClientInterface-2.0.4.jar client.py

After a moment, this should print the following message to the console:

new state: CONNECTING

Connecting to the client from DialogOS

You can set up a connection to the client in DialogOS (Dialog -> Devices), using one of the following two options:

  • CLT Connector (Fixed Server) with server name "localhost" and port 8888.
  • CLT Connector (Rendezvous) with service name "Jython demo client" and server "localhost"

When DialogOS starts executing the dialog, it will then connect to the client.

Implementing your own client in Jython

Implementing your own Jython-based client amounts to implementing your own version of client.py, which should implement a class that is derived from the Client class from DialogOS. See the documentation of that class. You can then create an object of your class and call its open method to start the client and wait for connections from DialogOS. See the Wiki page on (Java) clients and the documentation of the Client class for details.

You can set the port on which your client listens for connections in the argument to the open method. You set the service name for the Rendezvous connector by changing the value that is returned by your getName method.

You can use all Java libraries and many Python libraries in your client. This works as follows:

  • To use a Java library, download the Jar file and add it to the classpath (by adding it to the -Dpython.path argument, see above).
  • To use a Python library, install it with pip install <library> as you would using Python. Important: Make sure that you use the pip that came with Jython, not the pip for your regular version of Python.

Note that Jython supports many, but not all Python libraries due to architectural limitations.