6. server — The IAC protocol server

The server module is the server for the IAC protocol. This is the way that the IAC protocol provides a means to create automation scripts. This is also the reason why the protocol is language and platform independent. It supports any language and platform that supports socket programming.

Most use cases would be primarily interested in script automation locally, but since this is a server, it is capable of handling remote automation calls as well. This makes the interface incredibly flexible.

6.1. Example

You can run the server directly by either executing server.py in the IAC protocol’s application directory, or by importing it directly and running its main() method:

python -c "import iac.server as iacs; iacs.main()"

--or--

iacs

See the Gnumeric, LibreOffice Writer or LibreOffice Calc sections for example Hello, World! shell scripts.

6.2. Usage

The server can be run in TCP or UDP mode. It is in UDP mode by default. You can view all of the usage options by running server.py -h. Here is the usage for version 0.1:

usage: server.py [-h] [-p PORT] [-s BUFFER_SIZE] [-t TIMEOUT] [-b BACKLOG]
                 [-l LOG_FILE] [--tcp | --udp]

Server for IAC Protocol 0.1 - by Risto Stevcev.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PORT, --port PORT  server port (default: 14733)
  -s BUFFER_SIZE, --buffer-size BUFFER_SIZE
                        buffer size (default: 1024)
  -t TIMEOUT, --timeout TIMEOUT
                        server timeout (default: None)
  -b BACKLOG, --backlog BACKLOG
                        maximum connections (default: 5)
  -l LOG_FILE, --log-file LOG_FILE
                        log file (default: stdout)
  --tcp                 TCP connection
  --udp                 UDP connection (default)