using a USB HID device

[Wouter van Ooijen]

I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a
keyboard or mouse, just something that uses the HID driver to avoid
the need for a specific driver). Is this possible in pure Python on
Windows, or even better, in a portable way?

Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

[Martin v. Löwis]

Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl) wrote:

I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a
keyboard or mouse, just something that uses the HID driver to avoid
the need for a specific driver). Is this possible in pure Python on
Windows, or even better, in a portable way?

What is the Win32 API for such devices? If it is plain
CreateFile/ReadFile/WriteFile/DeviceIoControl, you should be
able to do it in pure Python, using the PythonWin extensions.

Likewise, on Unix, you can use device nodes, and the fcntl module.

I don't think there is a platform-independent Python module for
such devices, yet, but you could write your own abstraction layer
using those building blocks.

HTH,
Martin

[Samuel Schulenburg]

wo****@voti.nl (Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl)) wrote in message news:<40*****************@news.xs4all.nl>...

I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a
keyboard or mouse, just something that uses the HID driver to avoid
the need for a specific driver). Is this possible in pure Python on
Windows, or even better, in a portable way?

Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

I have developed routines for Windows that address mass storage
devices using the Windows SCSIPASSTHROUGH layer. I found that USB
devices do not use this layer, and as a result I am also investigating
using python to access USB devices. So far it looks like a seperate
driver along with a interfaceing DLL will needed.

Sam Schulenburg

[Wouter van Ooijen]

>> I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a

keyboard or mouse, just something that uses the HID driver to avoid
the need for a specific driver). Is this possible in pure Python on
Windows, or even better, in a portable way?

What is the Win32 API for such devices?

To be honest, I don't have the faintest idea. I hoped there would be
some abstraction layer (freferrably a portable one) like for serial
ports.
Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

[Jeff Epler]

libusb is portable to Linux, BSD including OS X, and Windows.
I don't know of a Python wrapper, however, and my experience using
libusb on windows is limited.

http://libusb.sf.net
http://libusb-win32.sf.net/

For my own application, I wrote my device's API in C and wrapped it
using Pyrex.

Jeff

[Roger Binns]

Samuel Schulenburg wrote:

wo****@voti.nl (Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl)) wrote in message news:<40*****************@news.xs4all.nl>...

I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a

I found that USB
devices do not use this layer, and as a result I am also investigating
using python to access USB devices. So far it looks like a seperate
driver along with a interfaceing DLL will needed.

Here is one I made earlier:

http://cvs.sf.net/viewcvs.py/bitpim/bitpim/native/usb/

It is a Python wrapper (using SWIG) around libusb (including libusb-win32).
My BitPim project currently ships using it on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Roger

[Martin v. Löwis]

Jeff Epler wrote:

libusb is portable to Linux, BSD including OS X, and Windows.
I don't know of a Python wrapper, however, and my experience using
libusb on windows is limited.

http://libusb.sf.net
http://libusb-win32.sf.net/

It looks like libusb, on Windows, installs its own kernel driver,
which generates devices named \\.\libusb*. So this is not exactly
a pure-python solution :-)

OTOH, it may well be that USB devices, on Windows, cannot be
accessed purely from user mode, and that you always need some
sort of kernel driver.

Regards,
Martin

[Wouter van Ooijen]

>OTOH, it may well be that USB devices, on Windows, cannot be

accessed purely from user mode, and that you always need some
sort of kernel driver.

But I can live with something that appears to be pure python, like one
which only requires a win-specific addition. after all win32all is
windows-specific too, but I regard it as part of the windows-python
installation. One more dll is no problem, as long as I don't have to
write (and maintain!) it :)

Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

[Martin v. Löwis]

Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl) wrote:

But I can live with something that appears to be pure python, like one
which only requires a win-specific addition. after all win32all is
windows-specific too, but I regard it as part of the windows-python
installation. One more dll is no problem, as long as I don't have to
write (and maintain!) it :)

So libusb-win32 might be the solution for you (with other libusb
incarnations for other systems).

Notice, however, that your users need administrator privileges to
install a kernel mode driver.

Regards,
Martin

[Roger Binns]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:

Notice, however, that your users need administrator privileges to
install a kernel mode driver.

Yup. However you can access a device if there is a device driver
attached as well, as long as it is not open. For example if you
have a USB to serial device, you can open it under libusb-win32
providing no other user space code has it open as a com port device.

Unfortunately with both Linux and Mac, libusb can only open devices
for which there is no driver currently attached (irrespective of
whether there is a user space program with the device open).

Windows also requires that a driver be present. There is a do
nothing driver included with libusb-win32 that can be used.

Roger

[Samuel Schulenburg]

wo****@voti.nl (Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl)) wrote in message news:<40*****************@news.xs4all.nl>...

I want to use Python to interface with an USB HID device (not a
keyboard or mouse, just something that uses the HID driver to avoid
the need for a specific driver). Is this possible in pure Python on
Windows, or even better, in a portable way?

Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

I have been trying different approches to accessing mass storage
flash memory cards via the SCSIPASSTHROUGH layer under windows. I was
able to issue the reduced instruction scsi command set with a windows
DeviceIoControl() call. The main problem is finding information on how
Microsoft merged the usb mass storage interface to the scsi routines.

Sam Schulenburg