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Roasbeef committed Mar 1, 2017
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# How to write a Python gRPC client for the Lightning Network Daemon #

This section enumerates what you need to do to write a client that communicates with lnd in Python.
This section enumerates what you need to do to write a client that communicates
with lnd in Python.

Lnd uses the gRPC protocol for communication with clients like lncli. gRPC is based on protocol buffers
and as such, you will need to compile the lnd proto file in Python before you can use it to communicate with
lnd. The following are the steps to take.
Lnd uses the gRPC protocol for communication with clients like lncli. gRPC is
based on protocol buffers and as such, you will need to compile the lnd proto
file in Python before you can use it to communicate with lnd. The following are
the steps to take.

* Create a virtual environment for your project
```
Expand All @@ -14,15 +16,18 @@ $ virtualenv lnd
```
$ source lnd/bin/activate
```
* Install dependencies (googleapis-common-protos is required due to the use of google/api/annotations.proto)
* Install dependencies (googleapis-common-protos is required due to the use of
google/api/annotations.proto)
```
(lnd)$ pip install grpcio grpcio-tools googleapis-common-protos
```
* Clone the google api's repository (required due to the use of google/api/annotations.proto)
* Clone the google api's repository (required due to the use of
google/api/annotations.proto)
```
(lnd)$ git clone https://github.com/googleapis/googleapis.git
```
* Copy the lnd rpc.proto file (you'll find this in lnrpc/rpc.proto) or just download it
* Copy the lnd rpc.proto file (you'll find this in lnrpc/rpc.proto) or just
download it
```
(lnd)$ curl -o rpc.proto -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/lnrpc/rpc.proto
```
Expand All @@ -31,10 +36,11 @@ $ source lnd/bin/activate
(lnd)$ python -m grpc_tools.protoc --proto_path=googleapis:. --python_out=. --grpc_python_out=. rpc.proto
```

After following these steps, two files `rpc_pb2.py` and `rpc_pb2_grpc.py` will be generated. These files will be
imported in your project while writing your clients. Here's an example of a simple client that was built using these.
After following these steps, two files `rpc_pb2.py` and `rpc_pb2_grpc.py` will
be generated. These files will be imported in your project while writing your
clients. Here's an example of a simple client that was built using these.

```
```python
# python-based lnd client to retrieve and display wallet balance

import grpc
Expand All @@ -48,3 +54,12 @@ stub = lnrpc.LightningStub(channel)
response = stub.WalletBalance(ln.WalletBalanceRequest(witness_only=True))
print(response.balance)
```

With the above, you should have all the `lnd` related `gRPC` dependencies
installed locally into your virtual environment. In order to get up to speed
with `protofbuf` usage from Python, see [this official `protobuf` tutorial for
Python](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/pythontutorial).
Additionally, [this official gRPC
resource](http://www.grpc.io/docs/tutorials/basic/python.html) details how to
drive `gRPC` from Python including the basics of making RPC calls, streaming
RPC's (bi-directional and uni-directional), etc.

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