README.md

MessageSystem for Multicast communication

Introduction

This code is a Python package called MessageSystem that provides a messaging system using multicast and broadcast. It allows sending and receiving messages over a network using IP addresses and multicast/broadcast ports.

Installation

To install the MessageSystem package, you can use pip. Run the following command in your terminal:

pip install message-system

Basic Usage

Here's an example of how to use the MessageSystem package to send and receive messages using multicast and broadcast:

Sender code

Run this code in the PC that needs to send the message.

from message_system.message_system import MessageSystem

# Create an instance of the message system
msg_system = MessageSystem()

# Add a message to the send list
msg_system.add_to_send("Hello, world!")

# Send all pending messages
msg_system.send()

Reciever Code

In another instance (can be a thread in the same program) listen for the messages, default time to listen is 1 second. make sure to have the listener listening before the message is sent otherwise it wil be lost in the network.

from message_system.message_system import MessageSystem

# Create an instance of the message system
msg_system = MessageSystem()

# Receive messages
message = msg_system.receive()
print(message)  # Output: "Hello, world!"

Heartbeat Sender code

Run this code in the PC sending the heartbeat, it will repeatedly send the data pending to be sent. The function call can be wrapped in a Thread so that the program execution does not get stuck in the send_heartbeat function.

from message_system.message_system import MessageSystem

# Create an instance of the message system
msg_system = MessageSystem()

# Add a message to the send list
msg_system.add_to_send("Hello, world!")

# Send all pending messages
msg_system.send_heartbeat()

Additional Features

The MessageSystem package provides several additional features, including:

• Sending and receiving messages using multicast and broadcast.
• Management of pending messages to send and receive.
• Utility to retrieve available IP addresses in the system.