= Python API =

The MUSCLE Python API closely resembles the C api but is slightly more brief. Currently, only Python 2.x is supported.
It is enabled by default on the latest version of MUSCLE, and can be forced to be enabled by setting
{{{
$ cd [MUSCLE_SRC]/build
$ export MUSCLE_BUILD_OPTIONS="-DBUILD_PYTHON=ON"
$ ./build.sh [MUSCLE_INSTALL_DIR]
}}}
It will then be built as the Python module. By doing
{{{
$ source [MUSCLE_INSTALL_DIR]/etc/muscle.profile
}}}
it gets included in the Python module path. The latest information about the module can always be found by doing
{{{
$ python
import muscle
help(muscle)
}}}

The API includes the following functions:
{{{
muscle.init(sys.argv)
muscle.finalize()

muscle.send(portName, data, [muscle.datatype])
muscle.receive(portName, [muscle.datatype])

muscle.will_stop()
muscle.kernel_name()
muscle.tmp_path()
muscle.has_property(propName)
muscle.get_property(propName)

muscle.log(msg)
muscle.fine(msg)
muscle.warning(msg)
muscle.severe(msg)
}}}
These functions behave just like their [wiki:"C++ API" C++ counterparts], except `init`, `send` and `receive`. For `init`, first run `import sys` and then `muscle.init(sys.argv)`. Send will accept a sequence of objects, given a MUSCLE datatype. Receive will create a list of objects. The following datatypes are recognized:
||= Object ||= Python data type ||= C data type ||
|| muscle.int || sequence of `int` || 32-bit `int` ||
|| muscle.long || sequence of `int` || 64-bit `long` ||
|| muscle.float || sequence of `double` || 32-bit `float` ||
|| muscle.double || sequence of `double` || 64-bit `double` ||
|| muscle.boolean || sequence of `bool` || `bool` ||
|| muscle.raw || `bytearray` || `char *` ||
|| muscle.string || `str` || `const char *` ||
The first five data types take any sequence, as long as the datatype that it contains matches the canonical Python data type. In some cases, like with "NumPy", it may be necessary to recreate the with the canonical Python datatype. For example, with `int`:
{{{
import muscle, numpy as np

data = np.zeros(100, np.int)
muscle.send([int(d) for d in data], 'out', muscle.int)
}}}

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