Publish and subscribe both ways using MQTT Python

Question

I currently have a Python program written on the Raspberry Pi 3 to read in humidity and temperature sensor data and publish this data to a topic. I can then receive this data using my laptop. Here is my code for reading sensor data and publishing it to a topic from my Raspberry Pi:

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
import json
import Adafruit_DHT as dht
import math
import paho.mqtt.publish as publish
import paho.mqtt.client as mqtt
# Creating the JSON Objects

dht22 = {}
arduino = {}
dht22Temp = []
dht22Hum = []
arduinoLED = []


dht22['temperature'] = dht22Temp
dht22['humidity'] = dht22Hum
dht22['sensor'] = 'DHT22'

arduino['blink'] = arduinoLED
arduino['actuator'] = 'arduinoLED'  

# Timing constants
E_PULSE = 0.0005
E_DELAY = 0.0005

def main():
  # Main program block
  while True:

    h, t = dht.read_retry(dht.DHT22, 17) //Reading humidity and temp data from GPIO17
    t = round(t,2)
    h = round(h,2)

    if t > 25: 
      if len(arduinoLED) == 3:
        arduinoLED.pop(0)
        arduinoLED.append("true")
      else: 
        arduinoLED.append("true")
    else:
      if len(arduinoLED) == 3:
        arduinoLED.pop(0)
        arduinoLED.append("false")
      else: 
        arduinoLED.append("false")
    if len(dht22Temp) == 3:
      dht22Temp.pop(0)
      dht22Temp.append(t)
    else: 
      dht22Temp.append(t)
    if len(dht22Hum) == 3:
      dht22Hum.pop(0)
      dht22Hum.append(h)
    else: 
      dht22Hum.append(h)
    # lm35dzTemp.append(tempc) 


    # Publishing sensor information by JSON converting object to a string
    publish.single("topic/sensorTemperature", json.dumps(dht22), hostname = "test.mosquitto.org")
    publish.single("topic/sensorTemperature", json.dumps(arduino), hostname = "test.mosquitto.org")

    # Printing JSON objects
    print(dht22)
    print(arduino)
    time.sleep(2)

if __name__ == '__main__':

  try:
    main()
  except KeyboardInterrupt:
    pass
  finally:

    GPIO.cleanup()

Here is my code for subscribing and receiving data from my laptop:

import paho.mqtt.client as mqtt
import json

# This is the Subscriber
def on_connect(client, userdata, flags, rc):
    print("Connected with result code " + str(rc))
    client.subscribe("topic/sensorTemperature")


def on_message(client, userdata, msg):
    print(json.loads(msg.payload)) #converting the string back to a JSON object

client = mqtt.Client()

client.on_connect = on_connect
client.on_message = on_message

client.connect("test.mosquitto.org", 1883, 60)

client.loop_forever()

What I want to do is now publish something from my laptop (perhaps in the same code as the subscriber, or in a separate file that will just publish a message to the same topic - "topic/sensorTemperature"). But my question is: how do I also publish and subscribe to messages on my Raspberry Pi (in my first code that I published)? Since I am publishing messages in an infinite loop to my laptop, I will also need an infinite loop to subscribe to the same (or different topic) to receive messages. How do you run two of these loops at once? Will I need two different threads?

Thank you.

Tarun Wadhwa Tarun Wadhwa · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-15T20:51:18

As suggested by Sergey you can use loop_start to create a separate thread for receiving messages.

Here is how your main function will look like:

def main():
    # Create a new client for receiving messages
    client = mqtt.Client()
    client.on_connect = on_connect
    client.on_message = on_message
    client.subscribe(topic)
    client.connect(mqttserver)
    client.loop_start()
    while True:
        #code for publishing
        pass

Publish and subscribe both ways using MQTT Python

3 Answers