Before you can receive any commands from lirc, you'll need to initialize the module. After importing pyLirc, call the pylirc.init() function:
import pylirc
integer = pylirc.init(string name[, string configuration [, integer blocking ]])
the returnvalue is the returnvalue of lircs client library
lirc_init(), ie a socket, or zero on failure.
The socket can be used with select.select() to wait for data if you don't want to use blocking. This is especially useful in multithreaded programs as blocking mode of pylirc will block all threads, whereas select() will only block the current and with optional timeout.
name: the name used for your program in the lirc configuration file, must be supplied.
configuration: a filename to a lirc configuration file in case you wish not to use lircs default configuration file (usually ~/.lircrc).
blocking: a flag indicating whether you want blocking mode or not. See also blocking() and select.select() (latter in python docs)
If initialization was ok, you can poll lirc for commands. To read any commands in queue call pylirc.nextcode():
list = pylirc.nextcode([integer Exteneded])
The returnvalue is 'None', if no commands were in the queue, or a list containing the commands read.
To get the commands one by one enumerate the list:
for code in list:
print code
If you supply the optional argument Extended as true, code will be a dictionary otherwise it will be a string (old behaviour).
The dictionary currently contains:
"config": The config string from lirc config file - the same string you'd get in non-extended mode.
"repeat": The repeat count of the buttonpress.
Note, that there can still be more commands on queue after a call to pylirc.nextcode(). You should call it in a loop until you get 'None' back.
When you're done using pyLirc and before you exit your program you should clean up:
pylirc.exit()
When you initialize pyLirc, you can chose whether you want blocking or non-blocking mode. Blocking mode means pylirc.nextcode() waits until there is a command to be read until it returns.
To change mode after initialization, use blocking():
success = pylirc.blocking(int)