nightmechanic/ampule

A tiny HTTP server made for CircuitPython WiFi devices (like the ESP32)

ampule

A tiny HTTP server made for CircuitPython WiFi devices (like the ESP32).

Note that ampule is in alpha and right now for use by tally_circuitpy. Feel free to use it, but know that there are tons of things not yet implemented.

ampule gathers inspiration from Bottle: Python Web Framework, Adafruit's CircuitPython WSGI library, Adafruit's ESP32 SPI WSGI Server, and Adafruit's CircuitPython Requests library.

Usage

Route definitions in ampule are expressed through annotations that define the path and optionally the method to be matched against for incoming HTTP requests. ampule will pass along the request and any path elements that operate as arguments, and expects the HTTP status code, headers, and body to be returned as a tuple.

"Hello World" Example

The following example is a simple, working HTTP server that accepts an HTTP GET request at /hello/world and responds with "Hi There!".

import ampule, socketpool, wifi

@ampule.route("/hello/world")
def light_set(request):
  return (200, {}, 'Hi There!'})

try:
  from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
  print("WiFi secrets not found in secrets.py")
  raise

try:
  print("Connecting to %s..." % secrets["ssid"])
  print("MAC: ", [hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address])
  wifi.radio.connect(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
except:
  print("Error connecting to WiFi")
  raise

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
socket = pool.socket()
socket.bind(['0.0.0.0', 80])
socket.listen(1)
print("Connected to %s, IPv4 Addr: " % secrets["ssid"], wifi.radio.ipv4_address)

while True:
  ampule.listen(socket)

The majority of this code is CircuitPython boilerplate that connects to a WiFi network, listens on port 80, and connects ampule to the open socket.

The line @ampule.route("/hello/world") registers the following function for the path specified, and responds with HTTP 200, no headers, and a response body of "Hi There!"

Variables in the URL Path

Route paths can also contain variables, as in:

@ampule.route("/hello/<name>")
def light_set(request, name):
  return (200, {}, "Hi there %s!" % name)

Query Parameters

Query parameters are passed along with the request. If a URL ends with /hello/world?name=Bob then the following route will return "Hi there Bob!":

@ampule.route("/hello/world")
def light_set(request):
  name = request.params["name"]
  return (200, {}, "Hi there %s!" % name)

Specifying HTTP Method on Routes

You can explicitly specify the HTTP method on a route. If it is omitted, the match defaults to 'GET'.

@ampule.route("/hello/world", method='POST')
def light_set(request):
  name = request.body
  return (200, {}, "Hi there %s!" % name)

Specifying Headers

Headers are returned as part of the returned tuple in the route handler. As an example, returning JSON content and permitting cross-origin access would be:

headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/json; charset=UTF-8",
    "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": '*',
    "Access-Control-Allow-Methods": 'GET, POST',
    "Access-Control-Allow-Headers": 'Origin, Accept, Content-Type, X-Requested-With, X-CSRF-Token'
}

@ampule.route("/hello/world")
def light_set(request):
  return (200, headers, '{"hello": true}')

Building ampule

ampule can be added as a .py file into CIRCUITPY projects, or it can be used as a MicroPython compiled library and added to the lib/ folder of a CIRCUITPY project.

Building MicroPython libraries

After installing the mpy-cross compiler from https://learn.adafruit.com/creating-and-sharing-a-circuitpython-library?view=all#mpy-2982472-11 you can execute:

mpy-cross ampule.py

To build a MicroPython compiled library.

Running tests

Tests require pytest to be installed along with a local version of ampule, as in:

pip3 install -e .

Once installed pytest can be invoked with default arguments, as in:

pytest